Truck Firms Not Idle in Debate Over Freeway Use

Thomas C. Schumacher Jr. had just asked a group of trucking executives if they disliked a proposal to ban trucks from the freeways during certain hours.

Dozens of hands shot up around the hotel meeting room.

“How many don’t care?” he asked.

Only a half dozen hands went up tentatively.

About 150 trucking and shipping company executives met Friday in Anaheim to discuss defusing a growing demand that trucks get off Southern California’s clogged freeways, at least during rush hour. The group resolved to form a task force to suggest alternatives.

Effects of Squeeze

The truckers say that if their operating time is squeezed into the few hours between morning and afternoon rush hour, they will have to put even more trucks on the road to make all their deliveries in the allotted time, adding to the traffic instead of diminishing it.

“What we’re saying today is, ‘Here’s a task force, let’s sit down and let us offer you some guidance,’ ” said Schumacher, who is executive vice president of the California Trucking Assn. The trucking lobby called Friday’s meeting.

The agencies Schumacher wants to offer guidance are the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the Los Angeles’ mayor’s office and the Orange County Transportation Commission.

The Air Quality Management District is considering restricting trucks from the freeways during peak traffic hours to reduce the amount of time their big diesel engines spend idling. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley has proposed requiring truckers who use city streets during peak hours to get an expensive user permit.

And the Orange County agency is considering banning trucks at certain times from the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways when they are widened.

According to an Orange County Transportation Commission study, trucks aren’t a very large portion of freeway traffic. But they are involved in a disproportionate amount of accidents and an even larger portion of traffic delays.

Trucks in Accidents

Trucks with three or more axles on the Santa Ana Freeway comprise only 3.4% of the traffic but are involved in 8% of the accidents and account for 36% of the time lost to delays. On the Costa Mesa Freeway, trucks are 2.2% of the traffic, are involved in 3.3% of the accidents and make up 19% of the delays.

Should it decide to restrict truck traffic, Orange County favors a voluntary approach to enforcement, said Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Transportation Commission.

“But if it doesn’t happen voluntarily, my friends up here have the clout to make it mandatory,” said Oftelie, making a hand gesture to several other public officials on the dais with him.

The Air Quality Management District, given broad new powers to regulate trucks last year by the state Legislature, is also considering banning trucks from freeways in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties in order to meet federal air pollution standards in the nation’s smoggiest urban area.

The district is also considering requiring operators of big truck fleets to buy trucks capable of burning cleaner fuels, such as methanol. The district said it will produce a rough plan by the end of June and final rules in September.

That kind of talk makes John A. Wiggins nervous. Director of marketing for California Cartage Co. in Long Beach, Wiggins fears that the off-peak hours requirement will hurt smaller trucking companies, jam the ports with undelivered freight and eventually cause the shipping companies to turn to ports to the north, such as Oakland.

“And the ports dump a lot of money into Los Angeles right now,” he said.

Another problem, say the trucking companies: A lot of the scheduling isn’t up to them, since they’re at the mercy of the shipping companies.

And finding truck drivers--there is a severe shortage now, the companies say--will be even harder if they’re only allowed to drive the freeways late at night.

Still, say public officials such as Oftelie, the amount of delays caused by accidents involving trucks can’t be ignored.

“There’s a direct correlation between the number of trucks on the freeway and the time lost to accident delays,” he said after the meeting. “Getting them off the freeways during peak hours is one of the factors that works. And we can’t ignore that.”

The trucking lobby opposed the bill giving broader powers to the Air Quality District last year. Schumacher said in response to a question that the truckers group might test the new law in the courts if the group finds the air quality district’s requirements too stringent.