Metro will host a live interactive telephone town hall meeting from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 22, to discuss Metro’s Goods Movement Strategic Plan and the agency’s direction on improving disparities, especially those that are most impacted by goods movement activities.
Los Angeles County is one of the nation’s top gateways for both domestic and international trade. The county’s freight transportation system supports over 10 million people who live here by offering access to essential daily goods while supporting the national economy by handling over 30 percent of the nation’s containerized trade volume. Developing this Strategic Plan will help Metro and its stakeholders improve the economy-sustaining movement of goods while minimizing the impact on local communities.
Metro is in the process of seeking input from the public about how Los Angeles County should manage how goods move through ports, airports, railways and freeways to ensure they are moved efficiently and safely while reducing congestion and pollution. The telephone town hall will provide an opportunity to discuss priorities and options, ask questions of Metro’s goods movement experts and provide more feedback as the agency plans for the future.
For the meeting, 100,000 residents across Los Angeles County will be contacted randomly through an innovative automated telephone system and invited to participate in the public forum from the comfort of their own homes. The Telephone Town Hall also will include an option for participants to provide input through real-time polls. When residents answer their phones, they will be connected to the meeting automatically. Anyone who does not receive a call but wants to participate can dial into the toll-free telephone numbers listed below.
· English: On the day of the meeting, the toll-free call-in number is 888-400-1932.
· Spanish: On the day of the meeting, the toll-free call-in number is 888-400-9342.
There are several other ways to participate in the interactive town hall:
· Participants can also sign up for the meeting in advance and receive an email reminder.
· Those who want to participate by computer can register to receive a link to the webcast.
ADA Language Accommodation: If you require an interpreter or other accommodations, please contact Metro at least 72 hours prior to the telephone town hall meeting date at 323-466-3876 or California Relay Service at 711.
For more information about Metro’s Goods Movement Strategic Plan efforts, click here.
Categories: Policy & Funding, Projects
can’t attend, just some stuff to think about:
is there any rail infrastructure limiting the movement of double-stack containers in and out of the county? ponying up and double tracking the Tehachapi could probably also go a long way. Is it possible to utilize any of the light rail system for freight operations like they do in San Diego? What regulatory, operational, and structural changes would need to be made?
Do any airports have capacity to take on additional freight operations? (and i mean which are open to entertaining concept, not seizing slots from passenger operations because of how temporarily light the travel market appears) Which ones? Are they connected by rail? Would a new, modern freight-only airport be desirable in the long term? Where could we put it?
Is there capacity at the port for more operations? When does the port expect to reach capacity? At what point will it become cheaper to reclaim land from the Pacific for expansion? Unlike airports and train stations, there really isn’t anywhere left that could be politically wrangled to facilitate some sort of new port, and then you’d need to tie it to rail and the freeway system. It’s been done in Japan, the UAE, and a little place called Terminal Island in Long Beach.
How long will we have to wait for bureaucratic red tape and fight environmental claims in order to achieve any fraction of what i just asked about above? If you build in populated areas, you take houses and workplaces from people. If you build in the boonies, you don’t get to really “see” the fruits of your contributions and somebody will complain about something that’s apparently sacred and irreplaceable.