Alameda Corridor board expands role to other freight projects

Alameda Corridor board expands role to other freight projects    The Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, made up of representatives from the cities and ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, approved a seven-point mission plan for assisting with road, bridge and rail improvement projects designed to ease on-dock backlogs and truck congestion on key highway arteries serving the ports.
   The multi-jurisdictional agency turned its attention to clearing up other bottlenecks after finishing construction of the Alameda Corridor rail project in April 2002. The Alameda Corridor consolidated train traffic from four branch rail lines into a high-speed freight rail expressway stretching 20 miles between the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and major rail yards.
      Among the goals the authority set for itself are to:
*       assist in the evaluation and implementation of extended operating hours at port terminal gates and regional distribution centers;
*       work with the ports to optimize the use of existing rail facilities;
*       develop a pilot program for a shuttle train;
*       assist the port of Los Angeles and a railroad in developing a new, near-dock intermodal container transfer facility that would accept containers for the Alameda Corridor, rather than trucking the containers on the Long Beach 710 freeway.