Smoother-Running Port Isn’t Pleasing Everybody

The annual armada of holiday goods has begun to arrive at Southern California’s ports, pushing Long Beach to its busiest month ever in August. So far there’s been no repeat of last year’s huge floating traffic jam.

But not everyone is happy about the ports’ improved ability to handle so much traffic or with one of the steps taken to accomplish it: keeping terminal gates open well into the early morning.

Many port truck drivers don’t like working at night. And some late-evening commuters who once breezed along the 710 freeway find themselves competing for space with heavy container-truck traffic.

A year ago, an unforeseen surge of foreign cargo left the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach struggling to accommodate a growing backlog of ships waiting to be unloaded -- a tie-up that numbered more than 94 vessels at its October peak. Cargo terminal operators, trucking companies and railroads responded with more workers, extra equipment and longer hours, and the effort is paying off.

“We indeed are handling it. While we have had a few spikes, it has never created any congestion,� said Manny Aschemeyer, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which monitors ship traffic at the ports for clients around the world.

The Long Beach port in August handled the equivalent of more than 615,000 20-foot containers, the standard industry measurement. Combined with the neighboring Port of Los Angeles, which experienced a modest increase over 2004 numbers, it moved more boxed cargo in 31 days than the 14th-ranked container port in North America -- Montreal -- managed during the previous calendar year.

Southern California’s ability to handle that much volume without a delay has been noticed by the international shipping community, which has kept a close eye on the twin ports as the traditional peak season begins. Anxious to avoid the delays that made international headlines in 2004, many shipping lines and customers shifted some business to other ports.

“It is clear that so far this year, things are much better at the two ports than they were last year,� said Neil Davidson, research director for London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd.

One of the reasons for the ease with which the two ports have managed the traffic has been the move to nearly 24-hour operations at cargo terminal gates.

Since the shift began in July, off-peak truck traffic from the ports has run as high as 34% of total cargo moved, up from 12% to 15% previously, according to PierPass, the nonprofit entity created to run the after-hours program. Some 10,000 to 12,000 containers also are moved on Saturdays through the off-peak program, a day when terminal gates formerly were closed.

On the 710 freeway north of Pacific Coast Highway, for example, 66% of each day’s truck traffic moved during peak hours during the first eight weeks of the program, down from 81% before the program started July 23, according to data from the California Department of Transportation. Peak hours are defined as 3 a.m. to 6 p.m.

But a survey of about 350 truck drivers who haul freight to and from the ports found that many were unhappy with working nights and haven’t found it easier to get day work even though there is less congestion.

Four out of 10 drivers “had a negative opinion of off peak ... with 30% undecided,� said the survey, commissioned by the California Trucking Assn., long an opponent of the program because it doesn’t offer higher pay rates to drivers for working nights.

“Many indicated that the promise of off peak, specifically shorter waiting times at the port, had not materialized,� the survey said. More drivers would support the program, the survey found, if they received higher pay.

The truckers have no union and are unlikely to take steps as a group, but they could join the continuing exodus of truckers nationwide to other professions, which has contributed to a coast-to-coast shortage of truck drivers.

Bruce Wargo, chief executive of PierPass, disputed the validity of the survey, saying that the program’s own poll of drivers found many who were happier working at night because there was less traffic on the freeways.

The program hasn’t met with an immediate endorsement from neighbors concerned about noise and pollution or from commuters.

“The deepest, darkest worry is that as the ports grow, the traffic will simply get as bad as it used to be,� said Tom Politeo, a San Pedro resident and co-chairman of the Sierra Club’s Harbor Vision Committee, an arm of the environmental group that monitors pollution and congestion at the ports.

And there have been unexpected consequences for off-peak commuters whose evening drives home used to be relatively truck free.

One of them is Dina Prediski, 49, who works in Anaheim as a renewable energy project manager and once enjoyed regularly driving at the 65-mph speed limit to her Long Beach home via the 710 freeway on her evening commute.

“Now, I’m merging with trucks, stopping and going, stopping and going, as late as 8 p.m. and even 8:30 p.m.,� said Prediski. “Before, you could avoid the trucks. Now you can’t.�