The Port of Long Beach has received a $53 million federal grant to modernize and expand its on-dock rail capacity.
Separately, contractors last month completed the $60 million demolition of the old Gerald Desmond Bridge, the last phase of the $1.5 billion replacement bridge project.
The federal grant, announced Nov. 2 from the federal Department of Transporation’s Maritime Administration port infrastructure development program, will fund a critical part of the Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility, a $1.57 billion modernization and expansion of existing dockside rail yard that helps funnel containerized imports directly onto rail cars. The rail cars can then connect to 30 other major rail hubs across the nation.
The goal of the railyard expansion is to divert as much cargo as possible onto rail cars and away from trucks that can clog up the region’s roads and freeways and generate pollution.
This grant brings the total local, state and federal funding secured so far for the project to about $360 million.
“I’d like to thank our federal partners for this strategic investment in expanding our on-dock rail capabilities, which will strengthen our position as the port of choice and alleviate truck traffic on local roads,” said Mario Cordero, the port’s chief executive.
Specifically, this grant will fund the addition of a track along the Dominguez Channel railroad bridge, removing a rail bottleneck. It will also go toward upgrading and relocating several roadways within the North Harbor area to ensure the safe and reliable movement of goods hauled by truck drivers.
“The North Harbor Transportation Improvements Project will modernize and expand key rail and roadways while ensuring that Port of Long Beach remains a national leader on goods movement and the environment,” Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said in the announcement.
The funding for the Port of Long Beach was part of $662 million earmarked for the Maritme Administration’s port infrastructure development program, which awards grants based on a project’s ability to meet cargo volume growth while improving the safety, efficiency and reliability of goods moving through seaports.
Meanwhile, in late October, the final milestone was reached on another major infrastructure project at the port: The $60 million demolition of the old Gerald Desmond Bridge.
At a meeting of the Long Beach Harbor Commission, which oversees port activities, it was announced that the contractor team – led by Kiewit West Inc., a unit of Omaha, Nebraska-based Kiewit Corp. – had completed the demolition and removal project after 15 months of work.
The contractor team dismantled and removed main truss spans, steel plate girder approaches, abutments, foundations and other pieces of the old bridge. The project finished 77 days early, according to comments from port officials during the Harbor Commission meeting.
That 1.5-mile-long bridge had originally opened in 1968, connecting Terminal Island with the Long Beach mainland. The bridge spanned the Cerritos Channel at the port with a clearance of 155 feet and two lanes in each direction for vehicular traffic. But by the early 2000s, the bridge had deteriorated, with chunks of concrete falling into the channel.
The $1.5 billion replacement International Gateway bridge, with a clearance of 205 feet and three lanes for vehicular traffic in each direction, opened in late 2020. But larger Panamax class cargo ships were still blocked from using the channel until the main span of the old bridge with its lower clearance was removed last year.
