Trucking: Rough Road Ahead : Industry Battles Political, Environmental Restrictions

As president of the California Trucking Assn., Gus Osterkamp represents an industry that is drawing more heat than ever.

Trucks and truckers have been identified as key culprits in the worsening problems of smog and gridlock, and several government agencies are trying to reduce freeway truck travel during the busiest times of the day.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District is considering restrictions on freeway truck travel during peak traffic hours to reduce the amount of time their big diesel engines spend idling.

The Orange County Transportation Commission, meanwhile, is considering restrictions on truck travel at certain times on the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways when a massive widening project begins.

And in Los Angeles, Mayor Tom Bradley has unveiled a nine-part gridlock proposal that would require truckers to buy special permits to operate during peak travel hours.

Osterkamp, whose one-year term expires in February, 1989, has owned his own trucking firm in Orange for 30 years. He now owns several trucking businesses, including Osterkamp Trucking, Dedicated Fleet Systems and Frontier Transportation. The companies, which operate 280 trucks, had combined revenue of more than $25 million last year, he said.

Osterkamp, 49, was raised on a dairy farm in Orange County, and became a truck driver at the age of 19 when he hauled hay for his family business. In a recent interview, he discussed the environmental and political pressures being brought to bear on the trucking industry.

Q. Why is there such great concern all of a sudden about getting trucks off the freeways?

A. It really came with mandates from the federal government about air quality. The government mandated that each state must clean up its air quality between now and the year 2007. Right now, this area of Southern California (releases) about 1,000 tons of contaminants and pollutants into the air every day.

Q. How much of the 1,000 tons is caused by trucks?

A. They estimate that about one-third is caused by trucks and cars. No one has come forth with a legitimate study on that yet.

Q. Does most of the vehicle contamination come from trucks?

A. “Most” would be way too high an estimate, because about 6% of the traffic during commute hours is truck traffic. But the reason they pick on trucks’ diesel engines is that they claim that diesel engines pollute 15 times as much in stop-and-go traffic as they do when they’re running at a better speed.

Q. What effect have the federal mandates had on California?

A. During the past year, various governmental agencies have come forth with about five proposals that potentially have some sort of truck restrictions on them. The South Coast Air Quality Management District is concerned with truck pollution. And others think restricting trucks from the freeways during commute-time would reduce freeway traffic.

Q. What’s being proposed?

A. The South Coast Air Quality board thinks that methanol is the fuel of the future. They’re concerned that diesel fuel is too strong a pollutant. Earlier this year, they talked about the possibility of having fleets of over 15 trucks convert to methanol-burning engines by the year 1993. The engine manufacturers aren’t sure that’s feasible because methanol fires differently. We sat down with them, and I think they now are going to look at shippers and receivers of freight, realizing that those are the people we’re working for.

Q. What does Los Angeles Mayor Bradley’s plan mean for truckers?

A. Part of the mayor’s nine-part gridlock proposal deals with issuing special permits to truckers to operate during peak hours. That’s expensive. And that means that every trucker would have to go out and buy a permit, because how can I compete with you if I don’t have a permit and the guy wants his freight delivered during the commute hours? That solves nothing. It just increases our cost of operation, and we have to pass that cost on to someone. I’m sure that some of the nine-part initiative probably has some merit to it. One good thing that has come with it, is they removed parking along curbs during certain hours. They put on a tough fine and began towing cars away, and that helped a lot. They made it easier for people like UPS and Federal Express to make deliveries and not tie up the city streets because now they have a place to park and load and unload. It’s too early to say what will come of with our meetings with Mayor Bradley.

Q. And what has the Orange County Transportation Commission proposed?

A. So far, they’ve told us that voluntary truck travel reductions during commute hours will help ease the traffic problem when they go to widen the freeways.

Q. This spring, trucking companies voluntarily cut down on rush-hour travel during a widening project on the Ventura Freeway. Los Angeles officials said the efforts have worked well. Do you agree?

A. I believe that if they let voluntary cutbacks work for a while, the message is really starting to get to the shippers and receivers of freight, and to the trucking industry. And when shippers and receivers start to voluntarily request non-commute pickup and deliveries and nighttime pick-up and deliveries and those types of things, then the system’s going to work.

Q. Can the trucking industry and shippers and receivers actually benefit from staying off the roads during rush hours?

A. If you’re a company that can run two shifts, and you can switch your shipping and receiving to nighttime, the trucking industry would love that. That’s why we’re saying let’s do it on a voluntary basis, and get the shipper and receiver community to volunteer, and we’ll serve them. But I’m saying voluntary, not mandatory, because some shippers cannot live with it. Some receivers cannot live with it. The people who are trying to restrict trucks should work with the shippers and receivers because they’re the ones being affected.

Q. If the threat of restrictions is taken away, won’t trucking companies and shippers and receivers simply go back to the old ways?

A. No. Because if it’ll work, they’ll probably see economies in it too. They see economies and they see higher costs in the future if trucks get restricted. There will always be that fear of restrictions.

Q. Do communities offer incentives for trucking companies that make off-hour pickups?

A. Usually there are few. I find it hard to believe that there’s enough in it for cities now to give any kind of a discount to encourage off-hour pickups.

Q. What is your association doing to combat the attacks on the trucking industry?

A. We invited truckers and shippers and receivers of freight and any other interested parties to a seminar in Anaheim this spring. We had over 300 participants and turned away about 100. The South Coast Air Quality board was there, and basically they gave their ideas of what was going on, and the audience expressed its concerns. The CTA has been actively involved in this entire issue since October of last year when Mayor Bradley outlined his proposals. Our environmental concerns committee has been heavily involved since February, and we’ve had several meetings with the South Coast Air Quality board.

Q. In addition to voluntary rush-hour cutbacks, what other solutions do you have to reduce freeway crowding?

A. We believe first the general public should face the problem up front, and let’s build some more highways. Let’s get some funding and improve the current system. We feel there are things they can do with the current system that will help the overall picture. Taking trucks off the freeways during the commute hours isn’t an answer.

Q. Do citizens want to pay for more freeways?

A. That’s part of the problem. Everything went down in flames in the election last month. Propositions 71 and 74, and (Gov. George Deukmejian’s) bonding issue all lost. This put us back to square one with no money proposed for new highways. In a lot of cases, people just don’t fully understand the proposal.

Q. So where is freeway money going to come from?

A. Just before the California Legislature finished its session, a proposal was submitted that would raise the fuel tax, for both gas and diesel, by 6 cents a gallon for the next four years, and increase truck weight fees by 60%. All that money goes directly to highway funding. We like this proposal, but there shouldn’t be any truck restrictions attached to it. The Legislature also has other proposals that aren’t as attractive to us. One would raise money to support revenue bonds. We’re not in favor of bonds, we’re in favor of pay-as-we-go plans. Another plan increases the fuel tax to 10 cents a gallon, and to 15 cents if some of the money went to fund mass transit. Mass-transit funding should come from some other tax. There’s no reason we should finance that with fuel taxes.

Q. Would the freeway problem be improved by slow-growth initiatives that would restrict development until adequate roads are built?

A. We don’t think so. The problem isn’t the growth. The problem is the highways. If they would have upgraded the system as they should have through the years, we wouldn’t have that problem. It’s a lack of planning, a lack of people willing to provide the funds to provide the highways. Also, slow-growth plans are not in our best interest because it stunts commerce.

Q. What other proposals do you have?

A. We don’t think that they’ve done enough studies on truck traffic being in a specially established “commuter” lane. This would be a through traffic lane where you’d give trucks the fast lane and designate only maybe 10 places in the system in Southern California that trucks can get off the freeway or on the freeway during certain time periods. Because of traffic, a truck driver does not get on the freeway during commute hours unless he has to. Now if the guy has to get out of town, let him get on a lane and go out of town. This would keep the truck traffic constantly flowing.

Q. And you’re a supporter of this?

A. I don’t think enough studies have been done to say that it’s a good idea, or it’s a bad idea. I’m saying this is one of the types of things that I don’t think they’ve worked with enough before saying “restrict trucks, take them off the freeway.” Last year, the California trucking industry sponsored a bill calling for a study to determine the effect of removing trucks from freeways during peak traffic hours. The bill was passed and the money was appropriated. But now they’re trying to restrict trucks before the study has been done. The report is due back to the Legislature on Jan. 1, 1989. So we don’t feel that they should be restricting trucks until that study is completed.

Six percent of the accidents on freeways during commute hours are truck-related, but they are claiming that 34% of the tie-up is caused by truck-related accidents. We don’t know that that’s true. That’s why we’re saying the study should come out first.

Q. Is the pressure to limit truck traffic more severe in Southern California than in other parts of the state?

A. Yes. But the concern that the trucking industry has is that first it’s Southern California, then it’s the Bay Area, then it’s the Central Valley, and then if every city and county decides to put different restrictions on trucks, how do we operate?

Q. What about other parts of the country? Are there communities that restrict travel because of heavy rush-hour traffic?

A. New York City has some rules about delivering freight downtown during certain hours. And San Francisco has some basic truck restrictions on downtown city streets. There are truck routes in every city. We don’t have a problem with that as long as they’re reasonable. We’re willing to work with cities because we’ve got enough problems without looking for more.

Q. Do you consider freeway restrictions to be more severe than city street restrictions?

A. We don’t think it’s legal for them to restrict us from interstate commerce. And that’s what they’re doing to business when they say trucks aren’t allowed on freeways. This gives us no alternative way to travel. Through taxes and fees, trucks contribute more than 50% of the money to build and operate new highways. We paid for the bulk of the cost of them and now they want to take us off. That’s not fair.

Q. You’ve said that limiting truck traffic would cause repercussions with shippers and receivers that rely on deliveries. What’s your argument?

A. When you get into the shipper and receiver community, you’re really talking about commerce. We’re the servants of commerce. If you restrict trucks, you’re restricting commerce. What is the mom-and-pop operation, the small entrepreneur going to do if he can’t run two shifts to accommodate deliveries? If the trucking industry has to run split shifts, it’s going to raise the cost of operation. It could drive some of the small businesses right out of business because if their shipping costs double that might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Q. Would freeway restrictions hurt port business?

A. The Port of Long Beach and the Port of L.A. are very much concerned about that. They have problems as it is with it being such a highly unionized operation, which causes certain restrictions of hours that they can work. If you took half of those hours away, then you’ve got big problems.

Q. A lot of people seem to have a negative image of trucks and truckers. Does that contribute to your problem?

A. That we’re big makes us vulnerable. We have to work twice as hard to get support from politicians as someone who is in a much more glamorous industry. We constantly work on the image of the trucking industry and the truck drivers. But all it takes is this one truck driver who could be from anywhere in the United States to do something that disturbs a motorist, like tailgating or not letting him in when he’s trying to get on the freeway. Anything like that and our image is destroyed. We can spend all year improving our image, and two or three incidents destroy it. No one pays any attention to the safe driver.

Q. Do you support legislation that places more restrictions on who can operate a truck?

A. We are supporting a proposal before the Legislature that requires a much higher degree of financial stability to get a permit to operate in the state. Another bill the CTA backs is a safety bill which will require that all truckers pay for inspections of their equipment at terminal sites. And it will require that the trucking company pay $200 every six months to support the cost of inspections.

Q. Might the threat of restrictions be only a hot issue now that will go away over time?

A. No, it’ll never die out as long as we have traffic congestion and inadequate highways. We have 22 million vehicles in the state at the current time and the projection is that by the year 2000, we’re going to have 40 million. The issue really is relatively new.