Partial Cross-Section (courtesy of ICTF Notice of Preparation)
Western Expansion
“Go west, young man, and grow up with the country,” is a phrase, often attributed to Horace Greeley, a that became popular during the mid-nineteenth century in the context of Western expansion in the United States. Of course, for those people already residing on this supposedly “virgin land,” this expansion often meant displacement, disempowerment, even death. I recalled this chapter of our national history when reading a recent article about an upcoming meeting to discuss expanding a railyard in Long Beach’s Westside community. As of late, it seems like every couple weeks another major port infrastructure project is being proposed on the Westside, benefiting the national economy but at a high potential cost to the local residents.
Origins
The latest example of such “Western expansion” in Long Beach involves the near-dock Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF). The ICTF is owned by the Port of Los Angeles and administered by a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) between the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Operated by the Union Pacific Railroad through a lease agreement, the truck-to-train shipping container transfer yard spans two cities (Los Angeles and Carson) and covers nearly 150 acres. The ICTF also includes over 74 acres of undeveloped land leased from the Watson Land Company.
The ICTF is surrounded by underdeveloped industrial lands to the west in Carson, with residential neighborhoods lying just over the municipal boundary with Long Beach to the east. In fact, the ICTF directly abuts a neighborhood along its northern portion, and lies within one to two blocks from residential homes and school campuses (Webster Elementary and Stephens Middle School) along its remaining mile of length. This proximity to residents and students has been a source of consternation for the local community, which the proposed modernization only exacerbates.
Modernization
Nearly thirty years after the initial development of the ICTF, Union Pacific is now proposing a modernization of the facility. Longstanding concerns from communities near the ICTF have come to a boil in public forums like the upcoming meeting regarding the expansion’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The EIR examines a range of alternatives to determine the most effective way to meet the project goals while mitigating negative environmental effects. The primary proposal uses more efficient freight-loading operations and newer technologies to reduce emissions at the ICTF while doubling its capacity all within a smaller footprint.
Intermodal Container Transfer Facility Notice of Preparation: 1.5.2 Cranes/Lift Equipment.
The replacement of wheeled-crane parking operations with container stacking reduces the area required for container storage, which would allow the ICTF to accommodate the increase in overall container storage and throughput while reducing adverse air quality impacts. Also, the efficiency of the electric WSG cranes is expected to reduce the area required for truck chassis and container storage. As a result, the 74 acres that UP currently leases from the Watson Land Company is not expected to be needed for storage and handling of freight and cargo containers.
While backers of this proposal assert that the modernized ICTF would reduce emissions, there is little to address the greater visual impact, light and noise pollution, and traffic congestion from the expansion. As envisioned by this proposal, greater efficiency would come not just from the fact that as many as twice as many trucks and trains would access the ICTF, but that the facility would use gantries (large metal frameworks for lifting containers) more than three times the size of those currently in use, and would locate them closer to nearby neighborhoods. The Long Beach city council is currently immersed in a discussion about zoning standards for truck yards that is meant to limit some of these visual impacts. But because the ICTF is located outside the city boundaries, those regulations would have little effect.
An Alternative
Given these potential negative impacts, it is understandable that many Westside residents oppose the ICTF expansion, along with several other major port infrastructure projects that literally surround their community. But might there be a third path in the case of the possible ICTF expansion, an alternative that could benefit both residents and our economy? This alternative could simultaneously allow the ICTF expansion to happen, and at the same time lead to the construction of a great community asset for Westside residents that would not be possible otherwise.
To continue container transfer functions during construction, the ICTF expansion plan assumes that construction will take place in seven phases over a period of three years. Even so, there would still be diminished capacity during the expansion process. An alternative approach would be to develop an entirely new ICTF to the west of the current facility, on underutilized industrial properties adjacent to the Alameda Corridor. This would allow the current ICTF to operate at capacity until the new facility is completed.
Then, when the new facility is completed, the existing ICTF could be decommissioned and transformed into as park space. This would have the major advantage of creating a large buffer between the new ICTF and the Westside community. Imagine a park nearly 100 acres in size, the fourth-largest in Long Beach, expanding the Westside’s public open space threefold. Instead of residents and students looking at trucks and containers, they would see trees, birds, and soccer balls. It would be a bold initiative, but given that literally billions of dollars are to be invested in various port infrastructure projects, such a relatively modest community-supporting capital improvement would be a good start.
One might imagine that the most significant barrier to this alternative would be the land acquisition necessary to relocate the ICTF. But with nearly 90% of that land either owned or leased by Union Pacific, and the remaining property controlled by just four owners, this obstacle is far from insurmountable. Collectively, the properties in the area have relatively low land value, not least because two-thirds of them have limited development rights due to having been part of an organic landfill.
Precedents
Greater resources were required by the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency to collect the site for the recently-opened Gallery 421 residential complex. The Port of Long Beach had to purchase far more individual properties, and relocate many more businesses, to acquire land for their proposed on-dock rail facility just south of Anaheim Street. When the Port of Los Angeles attempted to expand berths 135-139 northward, they acquired a swath of land nearly a mile long, encompassing dozens of businesses and hundreds of thousands of square feet of building area. An interesting epilogue to this attempted expansion north was that it did not happen; instead, the Los Angeles Port administration is working with the Wilmington community to build a thirty-acre, nine-block-long park. Currently under construction, this “Harry Bridges Boulevard Buffer” will serve as an environmental mitigation for other port-related developments, while providing a great community amenity for residents who have long suffered negative impacts from the port.
From Salt Lake City to Chicago, communities nationwide are relocating rail yards and other goods movement infrastructure to improve operations, consolidate redundant facilities, promote economic development, and address land-use conflicts not so different from those at issue in Long Beach’s Westside. In Los Angeles, one underused rail facility has been transformed into a State Park, while another facility may also be turned into park space. Overall, plenty of precedent exists for the kind of alternatives I am discussing here.
Next Steps
At 6:00pm this evening (October 26), at Silverado Park Social Hall (1545 West 31st Street), the Joint Powers Authority will discuss the ICTF expansion project. It would be helpful to consider at that meeting, as part of their Environmental Impact Report process, alternative proposals like the ones I mention above. We should not squander this opportunity. We can take advantage of the proposed modernization project to relocate the ICTF away from existing neighborhoods and schools, maintain peak operations during construction, and increase long-term capacity, all while creating an expansive greenbelt buffer. This would be a “Western expansion” worth supporting.
