With plans to widen the Long Beach Freeway shelved amid community opposition, transportation officials are turning to a more basic approach to easing congestion: shifting truck traffic from daytime to night.
Grappling with an ever-growing volume of seaborne cargo, some planners think the best quick fix may be to switch the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach from an 8-to-5 shift to round-the-clock operations.
That would allow trucks to move on near-empty freeways at nighttime, rather than jamming traffic lanes and intimidating car drivers during peak commuter hours.
A 24-hour port would require persuading some of the world's largest shippers and retailers to change their routines so cargo can be moved at night. That could be a tough sell, since it could add to labor costs as workers at warehouses and stores move to nighttime shifts.
But proponents say it is essential, not only to ease traffic, but to avoid costly shipping delays in a region where clogged freeways are now the norm.
"All this stuff has always moved in the daytime, and that was always good enough. And it's not good enough anymore," said Robin Lanier, executive vice president of the Waterfront Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based group representing importers and exporters.
"And the fact it's not good enough anymore is costing a lot of people a lot of money."
The idea is winning support from some of the most vocal opponents of the proposed Long Beach Freeway widening, who said they would tolerate more trucks traveling the roadway after dark, even if it meant more traffic noise at those hours.
In fact, some residents suggested the approach at recent community meetings, recalling that many trucks traveled at night during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. They said the extra noise is better than the alternative: demolishing hundreds of homes to expand the freeway.
"If you had a choice between being kicked out of your house and a little more noise, there isn't a choice," said Gilbert Estrada, lead researcher for East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, a citizens group in East Los Angeles and Commerce.
The Long Beach Freeway has become a symbol of traffic woes throughout the region as expanding international trade has turned the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach into the third-busiest port complex in the world.
