Getting on with the neighbours

But an unexpected spat has sprung up from the expansion of landside infrastructure to deal with the increased volume of traffic.

Part of this involves a bigger rail marshalling yard, the Burlington Northern 150-acre Southern California International Gateway, intended to serve both LA and Long Beach. What irks Los Angeles’ neighbour is that the yard is in a heavily populated area and Long Beach says a much better site can be found, with port commissioner Nick Sramek complaining, “LA needs to treat Long Beach like a neighbour, not just dump the project over here without mitigation and changes”.

Long Beach is asking the LA city council to tell the port, a subordinate department, to move the site. At the very least, if the council agrees the completion date of 2016 will be delayed by at least 18 months.