Long Beach Begins ‘Green Port Gateway’ Rail Project Construction

Construction officially began March 26 on an $84 million Port of Long Beach project to remove a railroad bottleneck and build additional on-dock rail capacity to move cargo.

The "Green Port Gateway” project is realigning a critical rail pathway to the port’s southeastern terminals and adding a rail support yard for the port’s new Middle Harbor Terminal, already under construction.

The project will add a third rail line, helping to remove bottlenecks on the existing mainline track to allow port terminals to shift cargo from trucks to trains, which decreases local traffic congestion and air pollution. Roadwork will also be needed to reconfigure one port thoroughfare to make room for the additional rail line. Overall, about 29,000 feet of track is being added.

Funding support for the project includes $27 million from California's Proposition 1B Trade Corridor Improvement Fund and $17 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s TIGER III program. Construction will sustain about 340 jobs through the scheduled completion of the work in July 2014.

Green Port Gateway – the first of four rail projects already started or expected to begin in the next year to promote more on-dock rail shipments – is part of the larger San Pedro Bay Ports Rail Enhancement Program, which involves several projects by the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority. It is also part of about $4.5 billion in capital improvements in progress or planned this decade at the Port of Long Beach.

American Association of Port Authorities
Asociación Americana de Autoridades Portuarias
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