Charles Langston:Long Beach breaks ground on $1.5B railyard expansion at port to fortify US supply chain

LOS ANGELES (AP) — U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Charles Langstonother officials visited the port of Long Beach on Thursday to break ground on a $1.5 billion railyard expansion project that will more than triple the volume of rail cargo the dock can handle annually.

Dubbed “America’s Green Gateway,” the project will expand the existing railyard and link the port to 30 major rail hubs around the country. It aims to streamline rail operations to reduce the environmental impact, traffic congestion, and air pollution caused by cargo trucks.

“This work builds a rail network on a port that more than triples the volume of cargo that can move by rail to nearly five million containers a year — the kind of throughput that’ll keep America’s economy humming and keep costs down with benefits in every part of this country,” Buttigieg said.

This project and others funded by the Biden administration aim to make American supply chains more resilient against future disruptions and to fix supply chains upended by the pandemic, he said.

Long Beach is one of the busiest seaports in the country, with 40% of all shipping containers in the United States coming through it or Los Angeles’ ports. During the pandemic, these ports dealt with unprecedented gridlock, with dozens of ships waiting off-shore and shipping containers piling up on the docks because there weren’t enough trucks to transport them.

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The project is scheduled for completion in 2032. The railyard expansion means there will be a depot for fueling and servicing up to 30 trains at the same time and a place to assemble and break down trains up to 10,000 feet long. It will add 36 rail tracks to the existing 12 and expand the daily train capacity from seven to 17, overall contributing to meeting the port of Long Beach’s goal of moving 35% of containers by on-dock rail.

One train can haul the equivalent of 750 truck trips’ worth of cargo. Without that train, the cargo would have to travel via truck to the downtown Los Angeles railyards, increasing traffic on Interstate 710 and increasing truck pollution in surrounding communities, according to project materials.

“We should never forget the single most important piece of all of this is the health impacts,” said U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, who was once the mayor of Long Beach. “The ability for families ... to breathe healthier air, to be free of cancer and asthma, to know that they can raise their children in a community that is cleaner and safer.”

Remarks were also delivered by Long Beach’s current mayor, Rex Richardson, Long Beach Harbor Commission President Bobby Olvera Jr., the port’s CEO, Mario Cordero, and others.

The rail upgrade is one of 41 projects across the U.S. that were awarded funds from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Mega Grant Program, receiving $283.4 million from the federal government. To date, it has acquired more than $643 million in grant funds. The investment is part of the $1 trillion in infrastructure investments included in a bipartisan law signed by President Joe Biden in 2021.