As reported in the Copley News Service last week:

• “At the Evergreen terminal at the Port of Los Angeles, dockworkers spent two days unloading the Ever Diamond. Many of the ship’s containers were temporarily stored in long rows on Evergreen’s sprawling, 205-acre terminal, waiting for trucks to pick them up. But as space at the terminal filled up, dozens of containers … were towed to an auxiliary yard across the street.”
Note: Containers would not be “temporarily stored” in our patented storage and retrieval system. There would be no “long rows”, no “sprawling”, no “waiting for trucks”, and no “auxiliary yards across the street”.

• “(Mr.) Serrano would like to make more than two round trips per night, but he knows from experience that it’s impossible because of traffic congestion on local freeways as well as lengthy waits at the port’s cargo terminals to pick up ‘cans’. Frustration over these issues and others has, in fact, led many truckers to look elsewhere for work.”
Questions: Wasn’t the so-called traffic mitigation program imposed upon truckers like Mr. Serrano so that they’d be able to make more than two trips per night? And wasn’t this traffic mitigation program supposed to reduce “traffic congestion on local freeways as well as lengthy waits at the ports cargo terminals”? Isn’t that what “mitigation” means? Has this traffic mitigation program made life any easier for the beleaguered drivers? Our patented system would employ drivers and guarantee them a living wage. Our system, in fact, would attract and retain drivers.

• “But truckers aren’t the only ones concerned about slowdowns in the Los Angeles area’s trade pipeline. Shippers and retailers complain local rail lines are operating at or near capacity. Traffic congestion on the Long Beach Freeway throws off delivery deadlines as well as motorists’ personal schedules. Add to that a potential shortage of truckers and you’ve got a system that could back up at almost every turn.”
Question: Shippers, retailers, motorists, truckers … Has this traffic mitigation program made life any easier for anyone? Our system would establish delivery schedules well before vessel arrival, and customary delays would be eliminated by our programmed in-house delivery system.

• “After the 2004 backup at the local ports, Costco began shipping some of its Asian-made goods to its Midwestern stores through the Port of Tacoma, Wash. Other retailers took more drastic action. Pier 1 Imports, for example, now ships Asian goods destined for Texas and the southern United States via the Panama Canal … Among the projects viewed as most crucial in the Los Angeles area are adding truck-only lanes to the Long Beach Freeway, and building a new intermodal yard near the ports … But here in the nation’s smog capital, every proposal to expand cargo capacity is inevitably viewed through the prism of its potential contribution to air pollution.”
Note: If the LA-LB authorities actually believe that the port complex could handle twice the present volume without adversely affecting the region’s quality of life, they’re living in fantasy land.