Navigating Los Angeles Trucks, traffic and developing the Waterfront
November 29 - December 12 , 2013
Serving the Seven Cities of the Harbor Area
James Preston Allen, Publisher We received a letter to the editor from one of our readers recently about the dangers crossing San Pedro’s Gaffey Street to pedestrians (see “Random Letters” next page), which prompted me to go on a mission to discover just how much traffic there was on this main artery of transit in this part of the city. I thought it would be a simple quest. That I thought this simple question would have a simple answer shows my own lack of understanding of just how complex the City of Los Angeles truly is. From my years sitting on the Community Advisory Committee of the now defunct Community Redevelopment Agency, I recall some city employed technocrat saying that traffic volumes on Gaffey Street were in the range of 65,000 car trips per day. So I go sleuthing through the city's Department of Transportation website and was directed to NavigateLA.lacity.org. I thought the new and improved digital face of Los Angeles was going to make this quick, but of course the link to what I'm looking for doesn't work, forcing me to call LADOT directly. After 5 frustrating calls and several hours later, I finally talk to one technocrat who is actually in charge of traffic counts, only to find that the simple answer to my question is lost in a series of fairly old reports and a list of data that you need to have a traffic engineer explain just to make sense out of it. What I did discovered during this quest was that in the entire city, there are only 8 employees that count traffic—three who count it “manually,” and 5 who count it automatically via those boxes with a black hose strung across the street. The manual counts are done the old fashion way with some kind of clicker. I'm relieved that they weren't using their fingers. So it comes as no surprise that with this few workers there is a backlog of calls for service of 3,200 and that the most recent traffic count is dated from 2008. They can hardly keep up with the demand. This all begs the question of why didn't the previous administration figure out how to count traffic remotely when it installed the citywide ATCS (Adaptive Traffic Control System), the automated traffic light system? It would just be too 21st century to have a real time count of traffic flows anywhere in the city. Yes, I know I'm dreaming. Much of Los Angeles’ bureaucracy seems stuck in a retro Raymond Chandler novel. Or as Tom Hayden once pronounced, “The problem of fighting City Hall in Los Angeles is finding city hall.” There are so many parts of the city bureaucracy squirreled away near and far that
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finding the right person with the right knowledge becomes a game of “Where's Waldo?” Add to this the complication of proposing anything new like the remake of the San Pedro waterfront. The real challenge facing Mayor Eric Garcetti is how to get the entire city mechanism running in the same direction, sharing information and addressing the real-time problem. I'm thinking at this point of the current and forecasted traffic volumes leading into Ports O’Call where the L.A. Waterfront Alliance revealed their proposed development recently. If one can trust the Port of Los Angeles’ numbers, there are currently some 840,000 visitors per year coming to Ports O’Call. Well, let's just say that the new Ports O’Call development is going to be half way more successful as it is currently, adding another 420,000 visitors a year. The total traffic would be 50 percent more congested, mostly on weekends, as that's when everybody from out-of-town visits. Add to that the congestion of having a few cruise ships in on the same days and perhaps a special event occurring simultaneously and there's a traffic jam all the way up the 110 freeway to Pacific Coast Highway or beyond. So much for living on a peninsula, folks. Now, it doesn't take a traffic engineer to predict this future calamity and it shouldn't have to take seven years to study it either. What this does call for, what the council office should be asking for is a comprehensive traffic-transportation study to tell us how all of this is going to work without choking all of the streets in the Harbor Area. This presumably, and one shouldn't assume, includes a traffic study and plan that includes the flow of truck traffic in and out of the port. To respond to Mr. Steven Bartels’ original complaint about traffic being dangerous to pedestrians on Gaffey Street, I'd have to agree. The best number I can come up with for the corner of 4th and Gaffey is 68,845 car trips per day. My suggestion is don't try to cross the street during rush hour. This number ranks Gaffey street 45th on the list of most congested streets in all of Los Angeles. And, it's only going to get worse as businesses become more successful in attracting visitors and more residents have to commute to jobs out of town. The temporary, partial fix is that Councilman Joe Buscaino got the LADOT and its engineers to fast track two new signals on11th and 8th streets. What one learns about doing business in Los Angeles is that when you are the chair of the Public Works Committee, you get to put your priorities at the top of the list without having someone stand there and count cars by hand. Publisher/Executive Editor James Preston Allen james@randomlengthsnews.com
“A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people mad enough to do something about it.” —Mark Twain Vol. XXXIV : No. 24 Published every two weeks for the Harbor Area communities of San Pedro, RPV, Lomita, Harbor City, Wilmington, Carson and Long Beach. Distributed at over 350 locations throughout the seven cities of the Harbor Area.
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On Strike: Why I am Fighting for the Rights of Port Drivers By Daniel Linares, Guest Columnist
My name is Daniel Linares. As a port truck driver, I have worked hard hauling the goods you need on store shelves from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for the past 12 years. I immigrated to the United States from Sonsonate, El Salvador to work hard and make a better life for my family. I work for Pacific 9 Transportation (Pac 9) as a so-called “independent contractor.” Although the company says that we are independent, we have no voice in the work we do. My fellow port drivers and I are told where to go, what to haul and where to deliver them. When I am stuck in long lines waiting at the port terminals, I ask if I can leave because I know I will be stuck there for several hours, with no pay for that time. I am told that I can’t leave and it’s clear that I will lose my job if I don’t obey. That is not the way an “independent contractor” is suppose to work. Calling us independent is a scam because in truth, there is nothing independent about our relationship with the company we work for. Because we are paid by the load and not by the hour, our income is very unstable. Last week, I made less than $200 dollars after working 6 days for 8 hours or more per day. We can work up to 20 to 22 hours a day, 6 days a week and still not be able to make ends meet. After working so much, it’s not fair that we still earn poverty wages. While Pac 9 makes millions of dollars off
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of the work that we do, we only get the crumbs. It feels like our trucks are sweatshops on wheels. Being unfairly classified as an independent contractor has taken away everything that we need to give our families a decent life. Because we are misclassified as independent contractors, Pac 9 scams their way out of paying us fair wages, benefits or overtime pay. We suffer deductions from our paychecks for the cost of operating and maintaining the trucks. After all of the deductions are made, we are left with very little—if anything. To make matters worse, we are denied the legal protections that employees enjoy, even though we do the same work as employees. Many port truck drivers develop medical issues, psychological problems and stress on family life because of our horrible working conditions. When Pac 9 found out that we were organizing, they pressured us to purchase their trucks. We realized that—although the company said they were selling the trucks at a discount price— with the amount of lease payments and deductions made from our paychecks, we had already paid the full price of the trucks three times over! When we didn’t accept the offer, Pac 9 retaliated against us by giving us less work. By going on strike, we showed Pac 9 that without us, their business stops. It is time for them to treat us with continued on following page Random Lengths News editorial office is located at 1300 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro, CA 90731, (310) 519-1016. Address correspondence regarding news items and news tips only to Random Lengths News, P.O. Box 731, San Pedro, CA 90733-0731, or email to editor @randomlengthsnews.com. Send Letters to the Editor or requests for subscription information to james @ randomlengthsnews.com. To be considered for publication, all Letters to the Editor should be typewritten, must be signed, with address and phone number included (these will not be published, but for verification only) and be kept to about 250 words. To submit advertising copy email adv@randomelengthsnews.com or reads@ randomlengthsnews.com. Extra copies and back issues are available by mail for $3 per copy while supplies last. Subscriptions are available for $35 per year for 27 issues. Random Lengths News presents issues from an alternative perspective. We welcome articles and opinions from all people in the Harbor Area. While we may not agree with the opinions of contributing writers, we respect and support their 1st Amendment right to express those opinions. Random Lengths News is a member of Standard Rates and Data Reporting Services and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. (ISN #0891-6627). All contents Copyright 2013 Random Lengths News. All rights reserved.