Description

Southern California is perhaps the nation’s most important gateway for international trade. By all
accounts, goods movement in the region is expected to grow significantly in the future, straining the
system of highways, ports, railroads, intermodal yards, and airports that is, in some locations, already
overburdened. Container throughput at the Ports has doubled in just the last eight years, and forecasts
suggest it will double again between 2006 and 2020. SCAG modeling suggests that regional daily truck
VMT will grow from 28.1 million in 2003 to 51.3 by 2035, an 83% increase. And train volumes are
forecast to more than double between 2000 and 2025.
While goods movement brings economic benefits to the region, it also has serious adverse impacts on air
quality, noise, congestion, and public health. In 2005, goods movement was responsible for
approximately 432 tons per day of NOx emissions and 17 tons per day of PM2.5 emissions in the South
Coast Air Basin, or 42% and 16% of all regional NOx and PM2.5 emissions, respectively. Looking
forward under a baseline scenario that reflects only currently adopted regulations, total goods movement
NOx and PM2.5 emissions will decline by 45% and 21%, respectively, between 2005 and 2020, primarily
due to the effects of recent emission standards for heavyduty
trucks, and to a lesser extent, emission
standards for locomotives, harbor craft, and offroad
cargo handling equipment. Even with these
improvements, however, the region faces considerable challenges in meeting federallymandated
air
quality goals and minimizing localized impacts of diesel particulate emissions.
A number of major efforts are underway to reduce goods movement emissions in Southern California,
including plans developed by the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the South Coast Air Quality
Management District, and the California Air Resources Board. This study is intended to complement
these efforts by helping SCAG and other agencies achieve the region’s air quality goals as they make
decisions about investments in transportation infrastructure and mobile source controls. The document
focuses primarily on truck and railroad locomotive emission reduction strategies, since SCAG is actively
engaged in planning improvements to highway and railroad systems. This Action Plan complements a
much lengthier technical report that presents a detailed emission reduction and cost effectiveness analysis
for more than 40 individual strategies (see Analysis of Goods Movement Emission Reduction Strategies:
Task 1 Final Report, January 2008, available at
http://www.scag.ca.gov/goodsmove/pdf....