Published: October, 2005
Bay Crossings:
Wes Starratt’s contention that "Oakland’s major problem is the deepening of its channels," as opposed to experiencing the same kind of congestion-related difficulties that LA / Long Beach has to deal with ("One Size Fits All – Not for California’s Diverse Ports," August 2005) may be off the mark a little in that the Port of Oakland and all its Bay Area sibling ports seem headed for some kind of meltdown, if we can’t figure out PDQ how to deal with our own crumbling infrastructure.
With large chunks of roadway falling off I-880 and backing up traffic for significant periods of time (more than 14 hours for at least one incident reported last April*), it really doesn’t matter whether harbor channels are 54 feet deep, or just half that, if we can’t get the goods out of the harbor area and into circulation. Add to that the vanishing amounts of land available for the proper staging of Oakland’s truck fleet, and, with Bay Area throughput about to double or even triple, shows we’re fast approaching the city limits of "Doofustown."
The port director in LA, reportedly, had to step down recently, due to the deterioration of community relations, which had happened during his watch. Here at the Bay Area’s main port, where the West Oakland community has to ingest clouds of concentrated diesel particulates every day, someone’s going to begin wondering pretty soon whether our overall port priorities shouldn’t be reassessed: after all, those chunks of concrete aren’t the only thing causing backups and overlong idling, there’s a whole Oakland-specific gamut of land use items that is forcing all those trucks and lifts to engage in excess container moves – all the way from Army Base to basic Zoning.
All Oakland’s fat cat lobbyists out in Washington notwithstanding, the basic necessity, or so it would seem to many of us, is figuring out how the surrounding community can be invited into port planning sessions, and allowed to help in coming up with a better solution to the mess we’re in — a mess we should all be reminded was caused by the exact same lack of citizen participation that characterized all the ultra-fabulous redevelopment projects (your choice here) that we’ve had to endure throughout the last half century.
With the commonsense of public participation injected into the dialogue, our policymakers aren’t then torn between the ostensible needs of one group over another; instead, they’re motivated to pursue the necessary funding (or precise policy) that will deliver to us all the most efficient seaport possible — roads in and out included.
Cordially,
Steve Lowe
VP, West Oakland Commerce
Association
