Office of Operations Freight Management and Operations
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Urban Freight Case Studies - Los Angeles

Geographic Description

Spanning almost 500 square miles, Los Angeles is the nation's second largest city, with a population of 3.8 million (Figure 1).2 To support this populous City and its numerous freight generators, the Los Angeles area has one of the world's most expansive highway systems. The Los Angeles County highway system consists of 527 freeway miles and 382 miles of conventional highways.3

Figure 1: The City of Los Angeles

Figure 1 is an image of the City of Los Angeles sky line.

Source: Los Angeles Department of Transportation, The City of Los Angeles Transportation Profile (Los Angeles, CA 2009).

Los Angeles freeways carry 350,000 trucks and 7 million truck miles daily,4 much of which is generated by the Los Angeles and Long Beach Ports, located less than 20 miles south of the downtown area. The main Interstate connecting the urban area to the ports is I-710, which carries high truck volumes. Like transportation networks in other large cities, the transportation system in Los Angeles is constrained by its existing infrastructure, which was built almost 100 years ago. Moreover, growth in passenger travel and the volume of freight moved has further strained highway capacity and exacerbated congestion in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, Los Angeles has the worst traffic congestion in the country, both in terms of annual delay per traveler and wasted fuel.5 Thus, the management of goods and services delivery is an important issue facing the area.

2 U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, Los Angeles City Quickfacts (Washington, DC: 2008), available at http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0644000.html as of June 5, 2009.

3 Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2003 Short Range Transportation Plan for Los Angeles.

4 Susan Bok, Los Angeles Department of Transportation, A Question of Balance: Land Use and Freight Movement Issues in Los Angeles, presented at the TRB 87th Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, January 16, 2008.

5 David Schrank and Tim Lomax, Texas Transportation Institute, The Texas A&M University System, 2007 Urban Mobility Report, available at http://mobility.tamu.edu.

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