If I come off a little more curmudgeonly than usual, please excuse me, but I’ve been driving up and down Western Avenue a lot the past several months while Caltrans does all it can to make life miserable for commuters.
Western Ave. road construction in mid-December 2024.
(photo: Steve Marconi)
I thought getting around San Pedro was bad enough with the nightmare caused by the Harbor Boulevard exit ramp situation (thank you, Port of Los Angeles), and then Caltrans decided to disrupt life for thousands of drivers by tearing up Western for every possible reason but making it better for vehicles. Could those in charge of painting the lane markings have made it any more confusing?
All of which is just a tiny preview of the hell drivers can expect in 2025 when work begins in earnest on what’s being called “Harborgeddon,” the redecking of the Vincent Thomas Bridge that, as of this writing, will be closed to all traffic for 16 months. And what’s the betting line on the over-under on those 16 months?
Things will get even more interesting for the San Pedro Bay ports in mid-January when the International Longshoremen’s Association, representing dockworkers all along the East and Gulf coasts, returns to the negotiating table with shippers and the battle over automation resumes.
Our own ILWU is expecting ships to divert to the West Coast, adding even more truck traffic to the already overburdened area. However, the ILA talks will be taking place right before the beginning of the Chinese New Year, a typically slow period.
Two developments could have a significant bearing on the labor talks. One is the recently publicized 2023 Container Port Performance Index. The CPPI report by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence ranks ports by efficiency, “focusing on the duration of port stay for container vessels.”
It’s an important benchmark because the longer a ship is in port, the more it costs the shipper. And, of course, all costs are eventually passed on to the consumer.
Out of 405 ports ranked worldwide, Long Beach is 373rd and Los Angeles 375th. The top-ranked American port was Charleston (53), while the New York-New Jersey complex came in at 92. Not surprisingly, East and Southeast Asian ports took up 13 of the top 20 spots, with Shanghai’s Yangshan remaining number one in the world and Oman’s Salalah second.
Dennis A. Daggett, executive vice president of the ILA, posted an excellent rebuttal to the report earlier this month that, while not being port-specific, certainly explains why LA and Long Beach rank so low in efficiency.
In one subtopic, Daggett notes, “What no one seems to be talking about is the outdated infrastructure that supports U.S. ports, such as highways, bridges, rail systems, and dredging operations. Many of these critical connections to the ports are decades behind the needs of modern commerce. Trucks transporting goods often face bottlenecks on congested and deteriorating highways.”
Sound familiar? You can read the entire rebuttal at ilaunion.org.
The second and most recent development was a midmonth meeting between Daggett and President-elect Donald Trump. Trump expressed his wholehearted support for dockworkers in their fight against automation.
Daggett reported to his union that the President-elect “was not just attentive to our concerns; he was receptive and genuinely engaged in a discussion about the existential threat automation poses—not only to the Longshore sector but to our communities and very fabric of this great nation.”
Few unions have been as antagonistic toward Republicans and Trump in particular than the ILWU, so Daggett’s words bear repeating:
“Let’s put politics aside for a moment, as I know it can be challenging for some to grasp. But I witnessed something extraordinary firsthand—this man (Trump) truly wants to fight for Americans and its working class. In over 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a Republican take up the mantle for working-class people. President-elect Trump proved me wrong yesterday.”
‘Nuff said. spt
