Streetsblog Los Angeles

The SCIG would certainly improve air quality for the region, but those living near the proposed yard worry the impacts on their lives would be disastrous.

New environmental documents for a freight rail project near the Port of Los Angeles known as the Southern California International Gateway could reduce truck traffic on the Long Beach to Los Angeles portion of the 710 Freeway.  But the SCIG Project faces strong opposition from the communities that will live adjacent to the 153 acre SCIG rail yard who fear the new rail yard endangers their very lives.

The Port of Los Angeles paid for an environmental study of SCIG, a freight rail depot and project that would allow containers to be loaded onto rail just four miles from the docks, rather than traveling 24 miles on local roads and the 710 freeway to rail facilities near Downtown Los Angeles.  If fully utilized, the SCIG project would reduce truck trips by 1.5 million trips per year, a reduction in 300 million truck miles traveled.

While that 300 million miles per year number sounds staggering, the cost to Long Beach residents can be staggering as well.  Communities in West Long Beach literally abut the gigantic rail compound without any real buffer.  The local Long Beach City Councilman is pitching a plan for 100% emissions free trucks to be the only ones that can access the port, while community groups are wondering how the benefits to the air county-wide can come at the expense of the air of the residents near the project.

A letter by East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice that was circulated last April calls for the expansion of on-dock rail facilities instead of opening a new facility near a residential area.

For its part, the DEIR claims the SCIG yard would actually make air quality better.  Much of the land just west of West Long Beach is already industrial and replacing the truck-based repair depots and other mixed industrial with a “green” rail transfer yard could improve the air quality in the area and reduce the cancer risk to even those people living near the SCIG transfer yard.  To better understand how the Port’s study claims how a rail yard will provide clean air benefits, take a moment to watch this video.

The recently released Draft Environmental Impact Report for the project concludes that “The truck trips (to SCIG) would replace truck trips that would otherwise go to the  Hobart Yard in East Los Angeles, a journey of 24 miles each way.  The contracts would specify that all trucks would be powered by engines that meet or exceed the 2007 EPA on-road standards, thereby ensuring compliance with the ports’ 2010 Clean Air Action Plan’s engine emissions requirements.”

Trade unions, construction unions, and the shipping industry is backing the SCIG.

An article in the Long Beach Press-Telegram announcing the DEIR’s availability notes that Diesel particulates near rail yards are traditionally dangerously high. Read more…

Freight transportation, which accounts for nearly a quarter of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, doesn’t get as much attention as passenger transportation because most people don’t feel it affects them as much. But more than 15 million trucks deliver 70 percent of the goods this country consumes – and the GAO says that’s a mistake.

Safety is one of many externalized costs of freight trucking. Photo: Truck Accidents 360 Newswire

The Government Accountability Office published a study finding that the costs of freight trucking that are not passed on to the consumer are at least six times greater than the equivalent rail costs and at least nine times greater than the equivalent waterways costs. Many of those are externalized costs passed on to society – like congestion, pollution, and crashes – as well as public costs, like infrastructure maintenance.

These externalized and public costs are just another way that taxpayers subsidize highways. The GAO implies that the country’s highway-centric transportation policy could be damaging the economy.

“When prices do not reflect all these costs, one mode may have a cost advantage over the others that distorts competition,” writes the GAO. “As a consequence, the nation could devote more resources than needed to higher cost freight modes, an inefficient outcome that lowers economic well-being.”

The report goes on to say, “If government policy gives one mode a cost advantage over another, by, for example, not recouping all the costs of that mode’s use of infrastructure, then shipping prices and customers’ use of freight modes can be distorted, reducing the overall efficiency of the nation’s economy.”

The GAO didn’t make recommendations in this report but did say that policy changes that make prices align with the true costs of freight shipping would provide a great economic benefit. Less targeted changes, like charging user fees, subsidizing more efficient alternatives, or applying safety or emissions regulations – could be helpful as well. The report acknowledges that “the current configuration of transportation infrastructure can limit the shifting of freight among modes.”

After all, we’ve been building a lot more highways than railroads lately.

As activists continue to make the case that any infrastructure-based stimulus package has to promote green and alternative technologies or it will do more harm than good in the long term; a 2004 report, Road to Ruin, by the Friends of the Earth is getting some new attention.  In addition to detailing the amount of money that governments spend subsidizing our highway system every year, the report also analyzes what it calls 27 "Roads to Ruin" or the worst highway projects in the country.

Not surprisingly, the I-710 expansion project, before tunneling was even mentioned as an alternative, was high on the list. Click here and go to page 10 to see the full listing for the project, but in short:

Though SR 710 supporters claim that the highway would improve air quality, the South Coast Air Quality Management District criticized Caltrans’ use of an obsolete air pollutant emission model, and the EPA has criticized numerous flaws in Caltrans’ analysis of SR 710’s impact on air quality and communities. A federal district court based its 1999 injunction against the project partly upon fl aws in Caltrans’ emissions analysis.

SR 710 is projected to double the number of vehicle trips through the corridor—to 200,000 per day—and many of those vehicles would be diesel trucks. The Air Quality Management District’s 2002 Multiple Air Toxics Exposure Study II found that air pollution-related cancer risk was elevated across the Los Angeles Basin; that cars, trucks and other vehicles were primary sources of some carcinogenic air pollutants; and that the highest risk often occurred near major roads.

Read more…

Yesterday, the California Air Resource Board voted to adopt what are being hailed as the "nation's first comprehensive plan to slash greenhouse gases" despite protests from businesses and car dealerships that contend the new standards will be bad for business.

While the new regulations aim to cut emissions in all sectors of the economy, almost one-third of the recuctions are expected to come from the automobile industry.  The Green Car Congress explains what impact the vote will have:

The Scoping Plan requires the largest sectorial chunk of reductions to come from transportation, outlining projected 62.3 MMTCO₂e (37%) in reductions through a variety of measures.

The key transportation instrument is the Pavley standards, followed by the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard. In the final plan, however, ARB has increased its estimate of reductions in regional transportation greenhouse gases achieved through land-use changes and transit policies designed to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT); this is prior to setting the targets required by the newly enacted SB 375 (anti-sprawl bill).

ARB is also evaluating the use of feebates as a measure to achieve additional reductions, either as a backstop to the Pavley regulation if the regulation cannot be implemented, or as a supplement to Pavley if the waiver is approved and the regulation takes effect.

But the CARB isn't done yet.  Later today they're expected to vote on new rules requiring all trucks using California roads, whether they're based in California or not, to switch to low-emission vehicles or retro-fit they're current trucks with carbon filters by 2012.  By 2020, all trucks will need to have certain high-efficiency engines.  The move will cost an estimated $5.5 billion to implement, and the state has set aside $1 billion to ease the burden on truckers.

Read more...

Check out this video, via BikePortland.org, on bicycle safety, part of a Portland Water Bureau campaign to reduce truck-cyclist collisions there. Last month, the Water Bureau held a bike safety seminar, which involved cyclists climbing into the cab of a city truck to see (or not see) driver blind spots for themselves.

The accompanying vid definitely puts the onus on cyclists (since "drivers are trained for safety"). Still, there’s valuable info here on how the road looks from a truck driver’s perspective, and it’s impressive to see a city not only acknowledging the dangers trucks pose to cyclists, but taking action to mitigate them. Writes BikePortland.org editor Jonathan Maus:

I’m usually skeptical of educational videos as they are often cheesy
and pedantic. But this one worked. Much of the footage was taken from
inside the truck’s cab on crowded bikeways I’m very familiar with, but
they looked completely different from a trucker’s perspective. It was
eye-opening and nerve-racking just to watch the truck’s rear and side
mirrors as bikes darted in and out of view — I couldn’t imagine the
stress of actually operating that vehicle.

An angry State Senator Alan Lowenthal (D-LB) vowed yesterday to continue fighting for clean air, but won’t be re-introducing legislation next year that would place a container fee on all freight using the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland to raise funds for clean air initiatives.  In a statement released to the press, Lowenthal blamed a Governor more interested in doing the bidding of multi-national corporations and Republican Vice-Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin than in protecting thousands of Californian families from dangerous air pollutants.

“Pollution from international goods movement is causing a health crisis in California and the federal government is not going to bail us out. We need to stand up and fight this ourselves and hopefully, some day, we’ll have a Governor that will fight for California as well.” stated Senator Lowenthal.

The California Air Resources Board estimates 3,700 deaths a year are directly attributed to diesel pollution emanating from goods movement. That is in addition to the $200 billion in additional health care costs that CARB attributes to goods movement over the next 15 years.

“I held off on this bill last year at the request of Governor Schwarzenegger, and spent the whole year working with his office. Unfortunately the pressure from Governor Palin and multi-national corporations was too much for him and the Governor chose those interests over the health and well-being of Californians,”
concluded Lowenthal.

Yesterday was a big day in Sacramento as many important pieces of legislation required action by Governor Schwarzenegger or would expire even though they were passed by both branches of the state legislature.  The result?  The Governor signed legislation that links sprawl to climate change but also vetoed legislation that would have placed a fee on all containers entering and leaving the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The Governor surprised some observers when he signed S.B. 375, legislation that reqards communities that follow smart growth principals when planning and punnshes those that embrace sprawling growth patterns.  As recently as last Friday, the Governor signaled that he was, at best, undecided about the legislation.  However, leading environmentalists praised the Governor after the bill was signed:

"Land use is . . . the hardest part of the climate equation," said
Thomas Adams, president of the California League of Conservation
Voters. "This signature sends a crucial message from Arnold to sprawl:
‘Suck it up.’ "

However, all of the news out of the Governor’s office.  Following the advice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation that would have collected more than $60 for each 40-foot container that
moved through the ports of Los Angeles, and Long Beach.  The fee would raise over $400 million annually which would go towards traffic relief, freight rail improvements, and cleaner burning engines.

U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder, who yesterday heard the complaint by the American Trucker’s Association against the new "Clean Trucks" program at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, appears to be leaning towards the ports according to a report in today’s Los Angeles Times.

After a
40-minute hearing, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder said she would
probably allow the program to move forward, despite objections from
truckers.

"The balance of hardships and the public interest tip decidedly in favor of denying the injunction," she said in court.

Naturally, we’re not out of the woods yet.  ATA Spokesman Clayton Boyce is already telling reporters the association will file an appeal.  If not overturned, the ports’ plan would disallow any trucks built before 1989 to enter either port on October 1 of this year.  The ban could reduce truck emissions in the areas surrounding the ports by as much as 80%.

Photo: Swerve 3030/Flick

What is more important, the health and safety of people living near ports or the cost to truckers and consumers of helping truck carriers meet modern environmental standards and fairness towards independent truckers?  That question could be answered later today when a federal court hears arguments from the American Trucking Association against the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The ports, to the wild approval of local residents and environmental advocates concerned about air quality, have decided to ban all pre-1989 trucks from the ports beginning on October 1 and slowly raise the bar on emissions standards that by 2012 all trucks will meet 2007 emission standards.

Concerns about the "concession agreements" between the ports and truck contractors lie at the heart of the ATA’s lawsuit.  The plans the ports are proposing have been compared to agreements between landlords and tennants, giving the ports power over hiring practices, maintenance and employee health insurance.  The ATA argues that they are placing smaller carriers at a disadvantage, especially independent truckers that could be banned altogether from the Port of Los Angeles by 2012. 

Read more…