With an estimated 500,000 containers on cargo ships at the Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, ports, CBS LA reports workers need to speed up wait times and have help ready to offload the ships.
Executive Director of the Los Angeles Port Gene Seroka told CBS LA that he recently started a new program to help push the cargo forward.
“Over the last 10 years, the federal government and Congress have out-invested West Coast ports at a rate of 11 to one,” Seroka told CBS LA. “That’s got to change, and with an infrastructure bill pending vote in Congress this week, we need all eyes on Los Angeles.”
The new program, titled “Accelerated Cargo LA”, seeks help from the Federal Reserve System to make a change to current operations, which have seen this out-investment of West Coast ports.
“This is what 10 years of under-investment looks like, and we need to move forward,” Seroka added.
The backlog has caused uproar from truck drivers who have been left waiting at the port all day, CBS reports.
“There’s one crane for 60 trucks and it’s ridiculous. They have two other cranes sitting,” truck driver Oscar Ovalle told CBS LA.
According to the article, much of the blame has been placed on outdated infrastructure and dock help not keeping up with the backlog’s demand.
With the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports being two of the busiest in the country, KPBS reports the Port of San Diego has been trying to help LA where it can, though it does not have the same capabilities as bigger ports. To date, they’ve received four to five additional vessels over the last three months, though they plan to continue offering help as long as they can.
The backlog has developed over the years, headed by a combination of upsizing vessels and consolidating vessel strings among global carriers, KPBS reports.