Heavy trucks clog I5 and crack the freeways into rubble. An efficient and environmentally friendly solution is to incentivize long haul containers to be shipped by rail.
Quite a lot of them are but there are relatively few branch lines that run directly into business districts, which tend to shift and metastasize far faster than new rail construction can keep pace. NIMBYs are generally accommodating to new job-producing office park proposals but will dig their heels in at the slightest suggestion of running a new branch or god forbid a new ramp into any part of town. So rail infrastructure is stuck with whatever was built out during wartime exigencies, which means there's nothing really newer than the late '60s in terms of infrastructure for rail.
The upshot of this is that you get the trucks on the local roads and thoroughfares anyway, they're just last-mile intermodal or short-haul drayage instead of long-haul, but that doesn't eliminate the perfusuon of 80,000 lb 54 ft metal boxes milling around on streets 7 days a week, streets that were seldom if ever engineered with this kind of abuse in mind.
No, on that specific section of I5 there are a large amount of long haul trucks too. It is not at all just last mile and local delivery stuff. Note I'm sitting approximately 1/4th mile from the section I'm talking about so please don't say I'm clueless.
The upshot of this is that you get the trucks on the local roads and thoroughfares anyway, they're just last-mile intermodal or short-haul drayage instead of long-haul, but that doesn't eliminate the perfusuon of 80,000 lb 54 ft metal boxes milling around on streets 7 days a week, streets that were seldom if ever engineered with this kind of abuse in mind.