Long Beach port official supports high tech-shuttle train
A hypothetical high-tech cargo shuttle train to move cargo out of the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles has gained the approval of a least one member of the two ports' governing boards.
The magnetic levitation, or maglev, shuttle train, spotlighted in the March 2006 American Shipper (pages 88-90), proposes to create an all-electric conveyor belt system to move million of containers a year out of the two adjacent ports quietly and with little direct pollution.
'I think the port needs to strongly consider this maglev system in the short term, to promoting this, to involving ourselves in the beginning of this,' said Mario Cordero, Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission vice president.
Presented to a group of industry and business leaders Friday, the maglev plan would build a raised electromagnetic track that would levitate and propel train cars on a magnetic cushion. A recent test on a San Diego test track proved that the system would easily handle loaded cargo containers. The system does not emit any direct pollution, according to proponents, can be constructed atop current roadways and is virtually silent.
After seeing the presentation last year, Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, said, 'I was really excited, but I wasn't sure if this could all work. I said to my colleagues in Sacramento, 'I have seen the future.' This is the first time I have been able to have hope that we can grow the ports in a clean way. This is a homegrown cargo plan that gives us a glimpse of the future.'
The shuttle's proponents Friday offered several scales of implementation, including one that would carry containers from the ports to near-dock rail yards about five miles away.
'In my opinion, this 4.7-mile route is something that the port should be looking at as a priority,' Cordero said. 'We need to do everything we can to eliminate not only emissions in Long Beach, but congestion.'
Arteries linking the ports to intermodal transfer facilities a few miles away are hotspots of diesel particulate emissions. And from a congestion standpoint, they are often clogged with traffic to the point of paralysis. Numbers vary, but experts estimate that from 10,000 to 15,000 trucks per day transit through the two ports, dropping off or picking up cargo.
The cost of the proposed maglev shuttle system is from $90 million to $100 million per mile. Utilizing new technology developed in the United States, the proposed system costs about half of what current maglev passenger trains cost. Proponents of the system believe that emerging maglev technologies could lower the cost within a few years to less than $50 million per mile. The current system could cost upward of $500 million, no small sum even for the cash-flushed ports.
Cordero believes that port money earmarked for another pollution reduction program would make more sense going toward the shuttle. He pointed to the ports' proposed truck replacement project, a $200 million plan to offer new less polluting trucks for 15,000 older short haul trucks being used in the harbor.
'Even if all of the new trucks are electric, or LNG, or cleaner'burning diesel,' Cordero said, 'we are still going to have this truck traffic going in an out of the ports. One way or the other, this system will clearly alleviate one of the major problems that we are facing today, which is the congestion.'
The Long Beach board is expected to receive an updated budget plan on the truck replacement program in the next several weeks. Two weeks ago, the two ports jointly contributed $6.3 million to extend a Gateway Cities Council of Governments truck replacement program that has so far replaced nearly 600 trucks.