Riverside sues Long Beach over rail traffic

Riverside sues Long Beach over rail traffic    The city of Riverside, Calif., has filed a lawsuit against the city and port of Long Beach over the port's plans to redevelop two aging terminals into a larger, more efficient container terminal.
   Riverside, located east of Long Beach, is arguing that the port and city failed to consider the impacts of increased train traffic through the inland city. The main east-west rail line linking the port to the Midwest passes through Riverside, which is challenging the port board and city's approval of an environmental document certifying the project.
   The city council certified the environmental document last month after Riverside had appealed the decision of Long Beach's harbor board to do the same. Long Beach port staff has spent the last four years developing the environmental document to comply with California Environmental Quality Act laws.
   'Trains leave the port area in only two directions: some travel north, but most travel east, directly through the city of Riverside,' said the lawsuit, filed May 27 in California Superior Court. 'The project will have a significant environmental impact on Riverside by increasing the number of train trips trisecting the city, and Riverside notified the port of this impact, yet the port refused to properly analyze those impacts.'
   The Middle Harbor Redevelopment project is considered crucial by both the port and cargo movement advocates in Southern California. It would double the current container handling capacity of the two smaller, existing terminals it would replace. But the terminal would also be mandated to use cleaner cargo handling technologies than are in practice, meaning that while volume could double, emissions would theoretically decrease from current levels.
   But Riverside, which sits about 60 miles away from the ports, said it is already unduly burdened by rail traffic passing through its city limits, and that the new project would increase that burden.
   'Riverside has 25 at-grade rail crossings, sees up to 128 trains per day, and the trains carry 75 percent of the cargo containers from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,' the lawsuit said. 'The project would add at least three trains per day through Riverside, a significant impact, and a significant cumulative impact. (The city) commented (at public hearings in Long Beach) that the rail impacts to traffic cause many tons of air pollution in Riverside, waste fuel, cause dangerous driving conditions and increased rail/vehicle and rail/pedestrian impacts, and that its residents wait an average of three to six hours per day per crossing waiting for trains to pass.'
   Earlier this year, the city also filed suit against an expansion of the China Shipping terminal in the Port of Los Angeles. ' Eric Johnson