Fourth Track at Ocean Boulevard
Award
Airports & Ports Project
Description
The Fourth Track at Ocean Boulevard is a critical rail improvement project at the Port of Long Beach. Previous track capacity at the Project site is insufficient to meet growing demands for on-dock rail at East Basin terminals, hindering on-time delivery of U.S. goods and contributing to truck congestion, diminishing air quality, shipper costs, and reduced efficiency. It helped solve a bottleneck under the Ocean Boulevard crossing by adding a new fourth mainline track, realignment of 5,300 feet of existing tracks, installation of new centralized train control and signal systems, and two new retaining walls to reconfigure Harbor Scenic Drive.
The Project eliminates a rail bottleneck along the freight corridor serving the Port’s East Basin on-dock rail facilities of Middle Harbor, Pier G and Pier J marine terminals. It is a critical link between the national freight rail network and the San Pedro Bay port complex. The project provides an additional 480,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEU) of annual rail container capacity and increases freight network efficiency to address growing demand for on-dock rail service at the East Basin. By shifting goods to rail, the Project will divert nearly 900 trucks from the local roadway network each day, relieving congestion and reducing drayage truck traffic through adjacent disadvantaged communities.
It is part of a set of projects that will serve the Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility Program. The Construction Management team had to resolve many construction challenges, all while maintaining full operations for the existing railway. Close collaboration with the internal divisions and the collaboration with the contractor and other stakeholders in solving construction challenges ensured successful completion and accommodated tenants’ requests with minimal costs and delays.
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