A Los Angeles neighborhood just outside the nation's busiest port complex has become a perpetual traffic jam, with trucks that are hauling cargo containers backed up day and night as workers try to break through an unprecedented backlog of ships waiting to unload.

Meanwhile, cargo companies running out of space to store containers off-loaded from ships are stacking them outside overloaded warehouses and in parking lots.

"This is becoming an issue of safety," said Jacob Haik, deputy chief of staff for LA City Councilman Joe Buscaino, who represents the working-class area.

Haik said the city would start issuing citations to firms that stack containers unsafely or whose trucks clog streets.

As of Tuesday, there were 63 ships berthed at the two ports and 96 waiting to dock and unload, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California that oversees port vessel traffic.

We're just trying to get these truckers in and out," she said Wednesday.

Newsom's order is a start, Haik said, but he urged the governor to also allow cities to make it easier to change zoning rules.

The city has identified several port-owned plots that could be quickly paved and transformed into storage sites if not for existing red tape, he said.

But if you could pull together 10 or 12 lots, and put 40 containers on each of them, that's 500 containers," Haik said.

Mayor Libby Schaaf told KRON-TV on Wednesday that her city's port "has unused capacity right now" and Oakland can "take some of those ships off your hands, LA.".

A coalition of business groups including retailers, truckers, grocers and others said Wednesday that Newsom's order doesn't go far enough.

"There are additional real, tangible actions the governor could take to meet the moment and tackle this crisis head-on, but convening taskforces in 2022, delaying urgent actions for at least a month, and pushing funding discussions to the January budget proposal do not provide the sense of urgency needed to address this crisis now," the coalition said in a letter.