New Thinking Is Needed to Unclog Roads and Ports

When Arnold Schwarzenegger traveled to Tokyo last month to promote trade with California, Japanese businessmen had a no-nonsense message for the governor: Not so fast.

Literally, not so fast.

They told Schwarzenegger that efforts to expand trade “could be limited” by California’s congested ports and slow-moving transportation systems, recalls Sunne Wright McPeak, state secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing.

Similarly, during a November trip to South Korea and China, a delegation from USC’s Marshall School of Business and the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. heard loud complaints about delays at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach from government officials and company managers.

The visitors from L.A. not only agreed with their hosts, but also handed them studies showing that bottlenecks at the ports this year have saddled Chinese, Korean and Japanese companies with $1.3 billion in added costs for inventory and shipping.

Their aim was to persuade Asian manufacturers to pressure the American retailers that order their goods -- the largest four are Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Home Depot Inc., Target Corp. and Lowe’s Cos. -- to collaborate on improving California’s infrastructure.

Meanwhile, with the governor set to visit China in February, the Schwarzenegger administration is pressing a new program to speed movements of cargo through the ports and freeways of Southern California.

Such determination on the part of state and even foreign officials indicates a new urgency that could benefit what has arguably become the most important engine driving Southern California’s economy: international trade. But getting there won’t be easy.

Upgrades will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Even more daunting, perhaps, are the politics. To complete all the major construction projects that the area truly needs, the community will have to exhibit a newfound level of understanding of just what’s at stake.

“Our region will continue to grow as our economy grows,” says Rusty Hammer, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, who decries all the NIMBYs (Not in My Backyard); BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anytime Near Anyone); and NOPEs (Not on Planet Earth). “It is our duty to make sure that we implement the best possible solutions ... to deal with the inevitable growth, rather than to deny it.”

The reasons for all the concern are clear: More than $300 billion a year in imports and exports flow through the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, the airports at Los Angeles and Ontario and former military airfields in the Inland Empire. About 550,000 people in the region -- more than in any other sector -- work in the business of receiving, sorting, warehousing and shipping goods.

The pay for such logistics work is not bad, with a freight sorter pulling down $40,000 to $54,000 a year.

“These are new blue-collar jobs for the 68.8% of our workforce that has no college degree,” says economist John Husing who produced an analysis of the logistics industry for the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a six-county planning agency known by the acronym SCAG.

The trick will be to allow such business to continue to flourish in spite of all the obstacles.

The number of freight containers coming through the region have doubled in the last five years to about 13 million. Super-cargo ships carrying more containers per vessel threaten to compound the congestion.

Yet the seaports themselves represent a relatively small problem in some ways.

“The ports are hiring more workers, and if they lengthen the hours they work, they can handle the increased trade,” says Mark Pisano, SCAG’s executive director.

Bigger troubles lie in the truck and rail systems that move freight away from the ports. Intermodal sorting facilities at rail yards in Vernon and Los Angeles are strained. Trucks carrying goods to San Bernardino and Colton for shipment to the Midwest and South are clogging freeways.

The special rail corridor along Alameda Street, built in the 1990s at a cost of $2.5 billion and opened in 2002, is not working at capacity because “we did not predict the new patterns of goods movement,” Pisano says. He’s referring to demands of the big retailers to have freight sent as quickly as possible to their individual stores and distribution centers nationwide. That has required far more trucks on local roads than anticipated.

So SCAG, which handles planning for the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Imperial and Ventura, is proposing that dedicated truck lanes be built from Victor Valley to Long Beach and San Pedro. SCAG also envisions an expansion of freight and passenger capacity at Ontario Airport and new rail freight facilities in the Inland Empire.

In all, it sees the need for $200 billion in infrastructure work over the next two decades.

Fulfilling such visions in an era of strapped state and federal budgets will be difficult. So planners are looking to revenue-generating solutions such as toll roads. The trucking industry is amenable because vehicles on such thoroughfares could haul triple trailers, thereby gaining productivity in exchange for paying the fee.

There are other hurdles to overcome as well. Steaming ships, belching diesel exhaust, cause serious air pollution, a problem that if left unchecked could lead to severe operating restrictions. But business leaders and key lawmakers believe those challenges can be overcome by technological advances -- substituting electric power for diesel for ships anchored in the harbor, for example -- and cool-headed regulation.

Then there’s the question of how to manage the whole thing -- an issue that may well bring the subject of the new trade economy right to Schwarzenegger’s desk.

Principal facilities, including the L.A.-Long Beach ports and the airports of Southern California, are owned by the municipalities. This makes no sense when the whole region is affected by their operations.

“The foreign trade economy affects Orange and San Bernardino and Riverside and is much larger than Los Angeles,” notes Steven Erie, a UC San Diego professor and expert on the region’s infrastructure. “Only the state can govern something so big and important.”

If he’s smart, that’s what Schwarzenegger gleaned from his visit to Tokyo.

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James Flanigan can be reached at jim.flanigan@ latimes.com.