HARBOR AREA : Report on Improving Truck Traffic Approved
The Harbor Commission has approved an environmental report on Port of Los Angeles plans to improve the flow of truck traffic through Wilmington.
The port is considering several ways to provide a truck route between the Harbor Freeway and Alameda Street. One option was criticized during a public hearing Friday.
Gwen Butterfield, secretary of the Wilmington North Neighborhood Assn., said a recommendation to build a 20-foot-high sound wall along C Street would close in the Wilmington community like a prison wall.
And outgoing Commissioner Gertrude Schwab, a longtime Wilmington activist, said the community option is to have a natural buffer with commercial development, not a wall.
She was the only commissioner to vote against the environmental report.
“We might as well put up barbed wire and machine guns on top and tell the community to stay out,” Schwab said. The wall “will block the view of the port and stop airflow from coming into the community and only be an eyesore.”
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