Long Beach Commences $1.5B Railyard Expansion to Strengthen U.S. Supply Chain

On Thursday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other officials went to the port of Long Beach to start construction on a $1.5 billion railyard extension project, which will increase the dock's yearly capacity for rail cargo by more than three times.

Known as "America's Green Gateway," the project will connect the port to thirty significant rail terminals around the nation and enlarge the current railyard. In order to lessen the influence that cargo trucks have on the environment, traffic jams, and air pollution, it attempts to streamline train operations.

"With benefits to every region of this nation, this work establishes a rail network on a port that more than triples the amount of cargo that can move by rail to nearly five million containers annually—the kind of throughput that will keep America's economy booming and keep costs down," Buttigieg stated.

According to him, the goal of this effort and others supported by the Biden administration is to repair supply chains disrupted by the epidemic and strengthen American supply chains' resistance to future disruptions.

Forty percent of all shipping containers in the United States pass through the ports in Los Angeles or Long Beach, making it one of the busiest seaports in the nation. These ports saw an extraordinary backlog during the pandemic, with scores of ships sitting offshore and shipping containers accumulating on the docks due to a shortage of trucks for their transportation.

The project is expected to be finished in 2032. Given the railyard development, there will be a depot where up to 30 trains can be serviced and fueled simultaneously, as well as a location where trains up to 10,000 feet long may be assembled and disassembled. In total, it will increase the daily train capacity from seven to seventeen and add 36 rail tracks to the current twelve, helping the port of Long Beach achieve its target of transporting 35% of containers by on-dock rail.

A single train may carry as much freight as 750 vehicle trips. Project materials claim that in the absence of that train, the cargo would have to be transported by vehicle to the railyards in downtown Los Angeles, which would have increased traffic on Interstate 710 and truck pollution in the neighbouring areas.

Former Long Beach mayor and U.S. Representative Robert Garcia stated, "We should never forget the single most important piece of all of this is the health impacts." "Families should be able to raise their children in a cleaner and safer community, breathe cleaner air, and be free from cancer and asthma."

In addition, Mario Cordero, the port's CEO, Long Beach Harbour Commission President Bobby Olvera Jr., and current mayor Rex Richardson all made remarks.

The train renovation is one of 41 projects nationwide that will get $283.4 million in funding from the federal government through the U.S. Department of Transportation's Mega Grant Program. It has received more than $643 million in grant money thus far. Included in a bipartisan law signed by President Joe Biden in 2021, the funding is a portion of the $1 trillion in infrastructure projects.