Alameda Corridor

Hurray for Epstein's comments regarding the acquisition of railroad rights of way for the Alameda Corridor project. It's clear, we as Californians face our most acute economic challenge in decades. Equally as clear, state and local government must foster economic development-infrastructure projects such as the Alameda Corridor to bring jobs and an improved standard of living to Southern California. However, it became sorely apparent after a joint hearing on the Alameda Corridor project co-chaired by Assemblywoman Karnette and myself that railroad rights-of-way valuation procedures and guidelines were highly subjective and indeed unfair to California taxpayers.

The Los Angeles City Council approved a long-awaited federal financing agreement that will help ensure a vital transportation corridor doesn't become a drain on the finances of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The vote — 13 to 0 in favor, with two council members absent — allows the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority to accept $83.7 million from the Federal Rail Administration to help fund operations of the Alameda Corridor, a 20-mile freight rail expressway linking the ports to transcontinental rail lines.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are a cargo powerhouse, handling about 40% of the country's imported goods and making possible hundreds of thousands of well-paying freight-related jobs. Such a record would be impossible if not for the Alameda Corridor, a $2.4-billion engineering marvel that allows freight trains to travel the 20 miles from the ports to the transcontinental yards near downtown Los Angeles in 30 minutes, compared with four hours previously. With the help of the rail expressway, the twin ports moved nearly 16 million containers at the height of the international trade boom in 2006, up from 9.7 million in 2001, the last full year before the corridor opened.

Re "Rail requires high-speed spending," May 14 Your article on the feasibility of mounting a construction effort that could put $3.5 million of work in place each day was unduly negative. I worked on the Alameda Corridor and on the Utah I-15 programs, which showed the feasibility of delivering large civil works projects on an aggressive schedule. While they did not reach the peak volume planned for California's rail project, we have seen this volume in L.A. during the peak years of rail construction in the early 1990s.

From Bill Boyarsky's March 20 column, "Alameda Corridor Could Be Our Biggest Boon--or Boondoggle," it appears he has missed the point of what building a bipartisan coalition of support entails. The key to the success of the Alameda Corridor has been bipartisan support from its conception. Elected officials from both parties at the local, state and national levels have demonstrated leadership in supporting the corridor: President Clinton, by including an appropriation in his fiscal year 1997 budget for the corridor; Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Steve Horn, by introducing language identifying the corridor as a project of national significance; and Long Beach Mayor Beverly O'Neill and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, by making the corridor an economic cornerstone of their respective administrations.

Our goal, and that of the Port of Los Angeles, has always been and continues to be the development of the Alameda Corridor. After almost three years of negotiations, we recently finalized our agreement to purchase Southern Pacific's right of way between the ports and Downtown Los Angeles in order to consolidate the traffic from all three railroads onto this one rail corridor. With an estimated development cost of $1.8 billion, the ports have committed to contribute $200 million each and issue bonds for another $600 million to be repaid through fees assessed on the cargo moving over the corridor.

The state Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the structure of the board of Los Angeles' $2-billion Alameda Corridor project, cementing Los Angeles' and Long Beach's control over the rail-cargo facilities. South Gate and other smaller cities along the planned route of the 20-mile rail artery had sued Los Angeles and Long Beach, which have provided most of the project's funding, to allow them more control over how the money would be spent.

The Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority has elected a seven-member finance committee to oversee funding of the $2-billion commerce superhighway. The committee will be headed by Los Angeles City Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., who represents San Pedro. The other members are Long Beach City Councilman Jeffrey A. Kellogg; Carson Mayor Michael I.

On his second day as Dodgers vice chairman, Steve Soboroff was meeting with a club finance executive and the head of a charitable foundation when he learned that Major League Baseball had seized control of the franchise. Soboroff was so shaken by the news, he said, that he scarfed down a second lunch, forgetting he'd already eaten. "I was shocked," he said. "The finance guy looked like he'd had a heart attack. " Instead of clamming up and taking time to absorb the meaning of the takeover, though, Soboroff came out swinging, questioning Commissioner Bud Selig's motives and timing and fiercely defending his new boss, Frank McCourt.

A rating company's decision to downgrade certain bonds issued by the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority this week left economists scratching their heads. The reason? The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are celebrating one of their biggest one-year increases in trade in the last 25 years. That means it's also a good year for the Alameda Corridor, a 20-mile express route built to speed the flow of cargo from the ports to the region's railroad hub and on to retail shelves across the U.S. "It seems like an overreaction," economist John Husing said about Moody's Investors Service's downgrading of the bonds.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are a cargo powerhouse, handling about 40% of the country's imported goods and making possible hundreds of thousands of well-paying freight-related jobs. Such a record would be impossible if not for the Alameda Corridor, a $2.4-billion engineering marvel that allows freight trains to travel the 20 miles from the ports to the transcontinental yards near downtown Los Angeles in 30 minutes, compared with four hours previously. With the help of the rail expressway, the twin ports moved nearly 16 million containers at the height of the international trade boom in 2006, up from 9.7 million in 2001, the last full year before the corridor opened.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded $1.7 billion in bonds for the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, which oversees the 20-mile rail route built to speed the flow of cargo from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to retail shelves across the U.S. Moody's on Wednesday lowered ratings on the senior lien bonds to A3 from A2 and subordinate lien bonds to Baa1 from A3. It also put the ratings on a watch list for possible further downgrades....

Mission artifacts that could be more than 200 years old were discovered during an archaeological survey near the San Gabriel Mission, an environmental consultant said Wednesday. Pottery, brick, livestock bones and remnants of a masonry waterway associated with a mill built in 1823 were among the artifacts discovered Tuesday during the dig. Archaeologists also recovered items linked with the building of the Union Pacific Railroad in the late 1800s.

The slowdown at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is having a ripple effect on the Alameda Corridor, the 20-mile rail route built to speed the flow of cargo from ships to retail shelves. Reacting to a swift erosion in the corridor's traffic and revenue, Fitch Ratings recently placed about $2 billion worth of Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority bonds on a "rating watch negative."

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.

A half-mile bridge on Pacific Coast Highway in Wilmington designed to ease congestion opened Thursday, ending years of construction along the Alameda Corridor rail and truck passageway. The stretch of highway between the Terminal Island Freeway and Coil Avenue had been closed since June, said John Canalis of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority.