August 20 2018
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The Journal of Commerce 17 www.joc.com
Top 50 Global Container Ports Cover Story Special Report
city's "aging marine, rail and high-
way infrastructure" goes by truck,
and predicted that local freight
volumes would grow about 68 per-
cent by 2045. The city said truck
congestion and delays cost $862 mil-
lion in 2017, and estimated that the
cost would rise by 31 percent to
$1.1 billion by 2045.
"A city with our robust water-
ways and railways shouldn't be mov-
ing 90 percent of cargo by truck,"
said Mark Chambers, director of
tunnel, the other a rail-on-a-barge
operation.
Both projects are designed to help
get cargo across the harbor into the
New York City boroughs of Queens
and Brooklyn, and Long Island. An
earlier phase of the study concluded
that the barge project would remove
600 trucks daily from roads and high-
ways around New York and the port,
while the tunnel alternative would
remove 1,500 trucks daily.
The city, state, and authority
proposals, although conceived
independently, focus on similar
goals: how to expand the region's
freight network to move cargo more
smoothly from key transportation
hubs without further burdening
already-congested roads and adding
to pollution.
Outlining its proposal, New York
City Economic Development Corp.
said 90 percent of freight in the
data from PIERS, a sister product
of The Journal of Commerce within
IHS Markit. And the port authority
expects volumes to grow 4 percent a
year in the next few years.
Preparing for the future, New
York City is looking to develop a
container terminal in Brooklyn to
be served largely by barges. And New
York state in June awarded a grant of
up to $21 million to CSX Transpor-
tation to create an inland port at the
DeWitt Yard near Syracuse that will
be tied by rail to the port.
In addition, the port authority
— which completed a $1.6 billion
project 12 months ago to raise the
Bayonne Bridge, enabling vessels
larger than 9,500 TEU to reach three
of the port's main terminals — has
commissioned an environmental
impact study to help choose from
two proposals for getting cargo
across the Hudson River. One is a
"A city with our robust waterways
and railways shouldn't be moving
90 percent of cargo by truck."
Proposals focus
on expanding the
region's freight
network to more
smoothly move
cargo from key
transportation
hubs, easing
congested roads,
and lowering
pollution.
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