ACTA to Join Battle Against Cargo Container Blight.

News Editors/Business Editors

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 18, 2004

The public agency that built the Alameda Corridor has joined the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles in searching for ways to reduce the impact that the storage of empty cargo containers has on the quality of life in the harbor area.

Following a directive approved by its Governing Board last week, the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority announced Tuesday that it will assist the Ports in identifying existing facilities that store empty cargo containers and opportunities to consolidate them in less sensitive locations.

"Few things would improve Wilmington and other harbor communities more than rounding up these unsightly cargo containers and storing them in centralized yards," said ACTA Vice Chair Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles City Councilwoman, who is spearheading the effort to move containers out of residential areas. "They have become a blight and an obstacle to our efforts to improve the appearance and quality of life in our communities."

ACTA's Governing Board has directed its staff to:

-- Survey existing off-dock empty container storage facilities.

-- Develop possible alternatives to consolidate the existing

storage facilities.

-- Evaluate operational and economic issues regarding the

alternatives.

-- Propose an implementation plan and schedule.

"Though these containers are a byproduct of the trade that fuels this region, we want them stored in more logical locations," said ACTA Chair Frank Colonna, the Vice Mayor of Long Beach. "We want to work in concert with the Ports and storage yard owners in forging a solution."

The cargo-container initiative has been added to ACTA's "Expanded Mission," a plan approved Jan. 8 with $3.26 million in funding that outlines the agency's future goods-movement goals.

Opened 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 the transcontinental rail yards near downtown Los Angeles. The agency's Governing Board is made up of representatives from the cities and ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).