Representatives of Norfolk Southern, CSX and the NJ Short Line Railroad Association laid out their ideas about the conditions needed for more and better rail freight service in the NJ port area at a roundtable discussion hosted last week by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, the Rutgers Transportation Policy Institute and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
The railroads expressed optimism that -- given key infrastructure improvements -- they could capture a bigger piece of the existing freight market, particularly in the north- south corridor on the east coast, as well as much of the projected increase in goods arriving in the port. The top of the railroads' list of improvements was double track, double-stack access to Newark from the north, through Little Ferry, including the Marion Connection in Jersey City. Two less urgent but still high priority items are access to Global Marine Terminal in Jersey City and the Military Ocean Terminal of Bayonne, and increased capacity at Bound Brook. Each was estimated to cost about $50-$60 million.
CSX and NS emphasized that the vision they presented could not materialize without a substantial amount of public funding. It remains unclear whether the NJ rail freight budget will be increased from the pittance allotted to it in recent years, but NJDOT representatives were confident that incoming DOT commissioner James Weinstein would give freight issues high priority.
Forum participants seemed to accept the premise that the dramatic expansion in container traffic sought for the Port of NY and NJ would mean a tremendous surge in regional truck traffic. Yet Port expansion scenarios are based on a vision of NY-NJ as a "hub" port whose growth would come principally through an increase in "discretionary" cargo bound for points outside the region and therefore amenable to movement by rail.
As a corollary to the self-fulfilling prophecy of a truck crisis, the "Portway," a proposed 20-mile truck corridor from Port Elizabeth to Little Ferry, is regaining momentum. Tri-State Director Janine Bauer stressed that "greening" the Portway should be in planners' minds from the outset and that the project should incorporate measures to minimize air and noise pollution and be designed to reduce current truck impacts in Hudson and Union and Essex Counties. The feasibility of the Portway has yet to be fully examined, but the project should stand or fall on its ability to meet current needs for improved truck movement, not on the specter of vast increases in truck traffic in northeastern NJ.
The discussion took place in the context of release of a hub port "short list" by container ship giants Sea-Land and Maersk. The shipping companies have criticized both harbor and "land-side" access to NJ container ports in recent years, and have balked at re-signing long term port agreements with the Port Authority. Nonetheless, analysts say competition to be the companies' "load center" is NY/NJ's to lose, mainly because of the size of the local market served by the port. According to the Journal of Commerce, Halifax, Nova Scotia and Baltimore are the two other competitors still on the Maersk/Sea-Land list. To shore up NY/NJ's position, the Port Authority has launched a strong lobbying effort to ensure that dredging funds for the Kill van Kull are in the next Clinton Administration budget. Port Authority is also developing a port development proposal that would give NY/NJ the largest container port in the U.S.
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