Lawsuit filed against planned CA-47 upgrade - L.A. Times Reprint
larry_scholnick
truckway23-2009oct23,0,2147735.story
Headline: Wilmington hauls off and hits truck expressway plan with
lawsuit
Sub-Head: Residents worry that the project will bring more cargo
traffic and with it more pollution and illnesses.
By Ronald D. White
October 23, 2009
California transportation officials say that a new truck expressway is
needed to handle an expected post-recession trade boom at the ports of
Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest seaport complex. But
the neighborhood that has already borne the brunt of port pollution is
setting up a legal roadblock to stop it.
"There are at least 21 days to 28 days a year when the air is so bad
here that we do not let the children go outside to play," said Elva
Carrillo, who helps her husband, Alfred, run a small private school
affiliated with his Apostolic Faith Church in Wilmington, just 750
feet from the proposed truck expressway. "You can feel the trucks
rumble, day and night. How much more should we endure?"
The Carrillos are backing the Natural Resources Defense Council and
two community groups in their court fight against Caltrans and the
diesel-dependent cargo movement industry. The battle could determine
whether neighborhoods have the legal clout to divert a major
transportation project away from their homes or demand the use of
alternative energy vehicles. The outcome could signal whether Southern
California will retain its status as the nation's preeminent gateway
for international trade.
The lawsuit, filed in late September in Los Angeles Superior Court,
challenges the plan to replace the 61-year-old Schuyler Heim Bridge,
an aging structure that rises and lowers to allow ships to pass. It is
a critical cargo link over the Cerritos Channel that connects Terminal
Island and Wilmington.
The project would include a four-lane elevated roadway connection to
Alameda Street that would bypass three intersections with stoplights
and five railroad crossings. The completed expressway would be owned,
operated and maintained by Caltrans.
John Doherty, chief executive of the Alameda Corridor Transportation
Authority, said that officials have made the best choice among six
alternatives and one that is in the best interests of surrounding
communities.
The truck expressway "would reduce freeway truck congestion by as much
as 10% and also reduce truck congestion and emissions caused by trucks
that idle along nearby surface streets -- all while creating 11,000
construction jobs and $47 million in state and local taxes," Doherty
said.
"We have proactively pledged to install sound walls in the area and
special air-filtering systems in the several affected homes to
mitigate impacts of the expressway segment."
But the plaintiffs in the case say that the environmental review was
flawed and underestimates the project's truck traffic. They also say
that no serious effort was made to look at another expressway route or
assess the possibility of using only alternative energy vehicles along
the route.
"If you build this thing, it's like building a power plant. It will be
there for 50 years and it will be polluting the community every day,"
said David Pettit, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources
Defense Council and director of its Southern California air program.
The lawsuit argues that "already high cancer rates" in the surrounding
community will increase if the project is built.
The amount of exposure to diesel particulates is already so high that
"any increased risk there is unacceptable," Pettit said.
Doherty said the lawsuit was "without merit. The environmental
document in question meets all legal requirements and provides a
comprehensive and detailed analysis of the project."
At issue in the legal fight is a level of cargo movement that would be
difficult for many Angelenos to grasp. In 2007, their busiest year to
date, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handled 15.7 million
cargo containers and about 320 million metric tons of freight.
Cargo traffic insinuates itself into every aspect of life in
surrounding neighborhoods, making it impossible to forget the
proximity of the ports even in the midst of the worst global recession
in more than 60 years.
The sound of diesel truck engines of varying size and age is always in
the background. Soot coats cars and trucks. Tall stacks of damaged
cargo containers in storage yards loom above homes and churches like a
rusty skyline. People's clothes smell of diesel fumes after only a few
hours of walking neighborhood streets.
People who live near the project recite a litany of respiratory
problems. Some they blame entirely on the diesel pollution that
already exists. They suspect pollution as the cause of a host of other
problems, including severe allergies and sleep apnea.
Raymond Luevanos, 18, suffers from asthma. "I don't think I would have
it if I didn't live so close to all of these trucks," he said.
Jesse N. Marquez, executive director of the Wilmington-based Coalition
for a Safe Environment, lives four blocks from the Port of Los
Angeles. He is a fixture in the neighborhood, chronicling new reports
of illness and teaching residents how to collect air samples.
Marquez was an engineer in the aerospace industry, working on rocket
guidance systems. When that industry collapsed after the end of the
Cold War, he became an electrician. Marquez says he's not anti-
business; three of his brothers are longshoremen and one of his nieces
works at the docks part time.
But for the last few years, Marquez has been thinking about his three
children, each of whom suffer from asthma. Marquez also blames his
chronic sinusitis on the truck pollution.
"Everything moving along this route ought to be powered by natural gas
or electricity. Communities like ours, that suffer the most impact,
ought to have the cleanest trucks," Marquez said.
But what the ports are facing is on another scale entirely.
By 2020, the ports can expect to move about 22 million containers,
according to a recent report by the consulting firms IHS Global
Insight and the Tioga Group. That figure jumps to about 27.5 million
containers in 2025. It approaches 35 million containers, an increase
of 122.9% over the port's record year, by 2035, the report said.
If not for the global recession, the report said, those 35 million
containers would have arrived by 2025.
Proponents argue that the time to prepare for that trade surge is now.
"One of the things that is talked about in some quarters is that Los
Angeles and Long Beach are losing market share to other ports because
of the constant difficulties in getting decisions made," said John
Husing, an economist who follows international trade and its effect on
the Inland Empire.
"Are the ports going to be an economic engine or are we going to drive
that business to other ports?" he said. "Unemployment is a health
issue too."
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
Clark F Morris
<larry_s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>LInk: www,latimes.com/business/la-fi-
>truckway23-2009oct23,0,2147735.story
>
>Headline: Wilmington hauls off and hits truck expressway plan with
>lawsuit
Given that many of the containers are going to inland distribution
points, it might make very good sense to make far better use of the
rail line and extend it to the inland distribution points. It also
might make very good sense to electrify it. This wouldn't take care
of all of the truck traffic but it might take enough to eliminate the
need for the expressway and at less cost.
jgar the jorrible
> On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:29:56 -0700 (PDT), larry_scholnick
>
> >LInk: www,latimes.com/business/la-fi-
> >truckway23-2009oct23,0,2147735.story
>
> >Headline: Wilmington hauls off and hits truck expressway plan with
> >lawsuit
>
> Given that many of the containers are going to inland distribution
> points, it might make very good sense to make far better use of the
> rail line and extend it to the inland distribution points. It also
> might make very good sense to electrify it. This wouldn't take care
> of all of the truck traffic but it might take enough to eliminate the
> need for the expressway and at less cost.
>
> >But what the ports are facing is on another scale entirely.
>
> >By 2020, the ports can expect to move about 22 million containers,
> >according to a recent report by the consulting firms IHS Global
> >Insight and the Tioga Group. That figure jumps to about 27.5 million
> >containers in 2025. It approaches 35 million containers, an increase
> >of 122.9% over the port's record year, by 2035, the report said.
>
> >If not for the global recession, the report said, those 35 million
> >containers would have arrived by 2025.
1 or 2 million a year will go south:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/oct/23/mexican-megaport-still-going-forward/?uniontrib
San Diego isn't capitalizing on it they way they could.
jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/oct/22/poor-economy-takes-toll-tollway/?uniontrib