The news out of City Hall is bleak. Budget officials there are now reporting that Los Angeles' financial prospects are worse than expected, with a projected shortfall growing to $200 million next year.
In this difficult economic environment, in addition to ensuring adequate funding for public safety, the League’s advocacy efforts are focused on helping to accelerate economic recovery. We strongly support companies that create jobs and green growth. Over the last several years, we’ve advocated for projects that keep our economy strong so the City can have the resources to pay for desperately needed public safety services. We consistently back initiatives promoting public safety and business growth, and those that ensure economic prosperity and improved quality of life for everyone who lives and works in the greater Los Angeles area.
The LAPPL is enthusiastically supporting BNSF Railway’s proposed Southern California International Gateway (SCIG) project, designed to be the greenest intermodal facility in the United States.
BNSF’s $500 million of private investment will allow containers to be loaded onto rail just four miles from the docks, rather than traveling 24 miles on local roads and the 710 freeway to downtown rail facilities. SCIG will allow 1.5 million more containers to move by more efficient and environmentally preferred rail through the Alameda Corridor each year, greatly reducing truck traffic congestion in Southern California.
At the same time, the project will create thousands of good local jobs and remove more than 1.5 million truck trips from the 710 freeway every year, yielding significant benefits for local and regional air quality and relieving traffic congestion. In building SCIG, BNSF will clean up an existing industrial site and replace it with a state of the art facility featuring wide-span all-electric cranes, ultra-low-emission switching locomotives and low-emission rail yard equipment.
According to IHS Global Insight forecasts, the facility will create 22,000 new direct and indirect jobs in Southern California by 2036, including 14,000 jobs in Los Angeles. Approximately 1,500 jobs annually (direct and secondary) could be added to the regional economy during the construction phase. BNSF is in the process of finalizing a Project Labor Agreement with the Building and Construction Trades Council for construction of SCIG. The company has also committed to creating a local jobs training program and offering priority hiring for new jobs to qualified local job applicants.
Today’s tough economic climate demands that City Hall prioritize and fast track good projects like SCIG that will help our region build a "green" economy, create new jobs and promote public safety.
We encourage everyone to take a close look at the project by viewing BNSF’s informational video or visiting BNSFConnects.com. As part of the environmental review process, we hope you will join us in submitting comments for the official record to the Port of Los Angeles by December 22, 2011, to Christopher Cannon, Director of Environmental Management. Your comments will be included in the Final Environmental Impact Report.
We invite you to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
