LOS ANGELES — BNSF will extend a weekend incentive program it has been offering at two LA-area intermodal facilities as part of ongoing efforts to address congestion at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The program introduced in September, offering a $50 incentive for oceangoing containers that arrive at its Hobart and Commerce intermodal facilities, will continue through the end of the year. The incentive will be offered for in-gate activity above a set threshold for each carrier, based on historic patterns.
BNSF says the effort is in support of efforts to support 24/7 operation to reduce the cargo backlog at the two ports. Around-the-clock operation at the Port of Los Angeles was announced earlier this month; Long Beach had begun 24-hour-a-day operation a few weeks earlier.
Port workers are paid by the hour with union scale salaries and benefits. Drayers are paid by the load, queuing up for unpaid hour after unpaid hour after unpaid hour for a load, filling LA Basin with diesel fumes while going nowhere.
While the Secretary of Transportation just came back from months on paternity leave. I was wrong about Mr. Buttigieg. When he was appointed DoT secretary by President Biden, I was happy, I thought he’d be the star of the cabinet. …. Well maybe he is, maybe all the other cabinet secretaries are even worse.
Why would you think that? He was the major of South Bend, Indiana which had a “transportation system” that consisted entirely of a tiny fleet of about 30 buses. He has no business running the DOT.
So why can’t some of the ships skip the west coast and off load at New Orleans, Florida and the east coast? Yes, would take some forced cooperation. but I thought that is what a President did when faced with a big problem?
Heck, Port of Oakland is making it known anyway they can to shipping lines that they have capacity, no congestion, just up the beach . The ships could literally sail a couple days and still have +50 feet deep channel and the large cranes needed to offload the mega ships instead of waiting weeks…
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You wonder how much of the logistics is self inflicted by companies trying to consolidate the biggest ships to a few ports on one end and consolidating lifts on receiving end to a few select places to drive down costs. That in the fact that a trucker waiting 4, 5, up to 6 hours at these ports just to get a conex box blows my mind on how far these ports have to go in being efficient.