Transportation planners are seeking to build new highways exclusively for trucks that would stretch from Southern California's booming ports to as far away as the Inland Empire.
The focus on so-called dedicated roads for trucks is a sharp departure from long-standing plans to use trains to haul more cargo from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and is an acknowledgment that the 2-year-old Alameda Corridor rail line, built in part to alleviate truck traffic, might never attract the share of the freight it was designed to transport.
The $2.5-billion corridor, which opened in 2002 and runs 20 miles mostly in a trench from the ports to near downtown Los Angeles, was intended to carry half the cargo that comes into the ports, now the third-largest importing and exporting complex in the world.
"A very small portion -- 13% or 14% -- of what the ports handle goes purely on rail," said John Doherty, chief executive of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority. "That's no different from before the corridor was built."
The authority now supports the idea of building one or more truck-ways. There are three proposals under development, which are backed in concept by Doherty; Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who is chairwoman of the corridor authority board; analysts at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; and other local officials.
The truck highways would cost tens of billions of dollars.
One would run along the Long Beach Freeway, adding four lanes for trucks traveling from the harbor area to the Santa Ana Freeway. The proposal, which could cost $4 billion, also calls for expanding the 1950s-era Long Beach Freeway to 10 lanes for use by commuters.
An earlier plan to widen the freeway was shelved last year after residents complained that it would require demolition of their homes. Planners say they would try to avoid taking many homes under the new proposal by elevating new car and truck lanes in places where the right of way is narrow.
Another proposal, estimated to cost $450 million, would make part of California Highway 47 an all-freeway route directly from the port complex to nearby Alameda Street. A third, still in the conceptual stage and estimated to cost tens of billions, would extend a truck-way as far as Barstow in the Mojave Desert.
"Even if the corridor was to increase its volume, we are still going to have a lot of containers being moved on the backs of trucks," said Hahn, who represents L.A.'s harbor communities. "Now is the time to prepare for that."
