Port of LA’s Thomas Bridge shut down for repairs and possible replacement

The Vincent Thomas Bridge, a major artery for trucking at the Port of Los Angeles, will soon be shut down so that the California Department of Transportation can repave the bridge’s roadbed, according to Eugene Seroka, Executive Director, Port of Los Angeles.

In an interview with AJOT, Seroka said the bridge will be closed for repaving and the closure time “estimate is 16 to 24 months by the California Transportation Department.”

New Higher Bridge

Now, Seroka and the Port are arguing to keep the bridge shut longer and have it replaced by a taller bridge to allow bigger ships to access terminals that have been off-limits to the biggest container ships because of low air draft at the Vincent Thomas Bridge: “Well, number one, we've got a unique opportunity here and there are two concerns. The first is to make sure that that bridge is safe for the 54,000 vehicles that transit it every day. And that's the resurfacing project that the California Transportation Department is leading …”

However, he argues: “Second, this bridge is no longer viable for the size of ships and the growth that this port is witnessing. And I would advocate that while we have this opportunity, and the spotlight is on the bridge; a time has already been designated for that resurfacing.

Let's take a deeper look at what it would require to raise the bridge or have a bigger bridge in place without disadvantaging the local community for a duration of time that would impact school buses and commuters, the workforce, et cetera. But we've already got a project out there that allows us to take a pause and see what we would need to do to have a higher bridge in place.”

Otherwise, the container terminals impacted by the current height of the Vincent Thomas Bridge will make them obsolete: “Those terminals will be obsolete if we don't address the height of this bridge. And thirdly, under our plan, the jobs of dock workers and so many others, the count on this port will be there for generations to come, knowing that we can handle the largest ships in the world ... Under our plan, we would add another 12 months to that project and have a taller bridge capable of managing the biggest ships in the world.”

Seroka said plans are still in the preliminary stage: “We’ve done a cursory review where it makes sense to pursue a deeper study, and that's what we are going to be asking the California Transportation Department in a call tomorrow.”

Changing Traffic Flows

The Port is consulting with two companies to re-route traffic while the Vincent Thomas Bridge is closed: “That's being done through a partnership with Esri and the Jet Propulsion Lab to do studies on simulation as to how best to move using AI, how best to move this cargo over the available road and freeways … we have to make this a very sophisticated approach minimizing the impacts to the import/export community and those great truck drivers that service us every day.”

ESRI is a Redlands, California based firm that “has over 800,000 customers and subscribers on geospatial mapping software... What these guys can do is take a look at all the Port’s traffic and through artificial intelligence and digitalization on a computer screen, move that traffic through different arteries of our surface transportation network here in Southern California to do predictive and prescriptive analytics.”

Meanwhile the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology “also have the NASA satellite network. So here again, when it comes to collaborating on geospatial imaging and taking a look at traffic flows, pollution and the like, these guys have the ability through their computer systems to look at how traffic flows today and how better it could flow tomorrow.”

Seroka says the result is: “This is a really great approach that we're taking that relies not only on the great institutional knowledge of the people that work at the Port, but high-speed quantum computing, artificial intelligence … can make us smarter about the conveyance of truck traffic and cargo volume alike.”