Led by Jeff Johnson and Jen Dooley
By Jeff Johnson
The old Gerald Desmond Bridge in the Port of Long Beach has been replaced. The old bridge was not in good shape and was not high enough to allow the biggest modern ships to enter the inner harbor at high tide. The new bridge, called the “Long Beach International Gateway Bridge” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Beach_International_Gateway), is taller and wider. It allows the tallest cargo ships to enter at any tide, and allows more road traffic to enter the port area on I-710, which goes over the bridge. Another feature of the new bridge is a much-anticipated bike and pedestrian path. On January 28, that path was our destination.
We started at the Pier J fishing pier on the eastern side of the Port of Long Beach. The fishing pier is not much of a pier if you’re expecting something like the Veterans Memorial Pier nearby in Belmont Shore, but it is a convenient place to park (and to fish) in the Port. Getting there is confusing since the roads in the Port were laid out more for big trucks to get to the shipping piers and for tourists to get to the Carnival Cruise terminal and the Queen Mary. But a nice group of GLS hikers found their way there on time and away we went.
We skirted the cruise terminal and the Queen Mary on what’s labeled on maps the “South Waterfront-Pier J Bike and Pedestrian Path”. We passed the Aquarium of the Pacific, the Catalina Express terminal, and then at Ocean Boulevard, we started up the new “Mark Bixby Memorial Bicycle-Pedestrian Path” that goes over the bridge.
The recently-completed Long Beach Container Terminal (https://www.lbct.com/Home/Default) is just south of the bridge as you go up the path. It’s the most modern and most automated part of the Port, the “nation’s greenest container cargo facility”, with near “zero emissions” because it’s almost all electric. The automated stacking cranes and robot tractors move containers around the hundreds of acres of the terminal with hardly any people in sight. When three ship are docked and all are loading and unloading at once, it’s quite a show.
As you continue up the bridge, here are some other things you can see below in the Port: a very black coal yard where lo-o-o-ong trains (from Wyoming?) unload coal onto the ground, then bulldozers push the piles around, then shovels load the coal onto ships bound for—somewhere; the anonymous-looking port facilities for U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the Marathon Oil terminal where ships load or maybe unload, surrounded by floating barriers to contain leaks or spills; ships maneuvering slowly up the back channel to the inner harbor, guided by tugs; and off to the west, the vast Hanjin terminal on Pier T, the site of the old Long Beach Naval Shipyard. On a clear day, looking beyond the mole surrounding the West Basin of the Port, you can see Santa Catalina Island.
At the highest height of the bridge, the whole place jiggles when heavy trucks go by, and you can really feel it and hear it. Giant shock absorber-looking things connect the parts of the bridge up there to make it safe in an earthquake. There are benches to sit on, it’s a great spot for pictures, but not a very restful spot for lunch.
Currently, a locked gate up there prevents you from walking down the west side of the bridge into the Port. The Mark Bixby path is planned to continue down through the Port some day in the future. When that day comes, maybe we can come back and see where it goes.
On the distant horizon, at the left, maybe you can see the double hump of Saddleback Peak in Orange County and, at the right, the double hump of Santa Catalina Island (click the photo to enlarge). Photo Jeff Johnson.
