Traffic through the port of New York is expected to double by the end of the decade,
and the Port Authority is dredging channels to accommodate a new generation of larger container ships.
The New York Times Sunday took a look at how this would affect the area, including congestion. Currently, the paper reports, 87 percent of the cargo unloaded from ships in the port goes out by truck.
In New Jersey, state transportation officials have started construction of Portway, a trucks-only route between the port and transportation hubs such as CSX's rail yard in Kearney and Norfolk Southern's Croxton terminal in Secaucus. The project will use existing roads, upgrading roadways and replacing damaged or partly dismantled bridges. The roadway will be able to handle containers too heavy to use the regular highway system in New Jersey.
The Portway project will include a new lift bridge over the Passaic River and a trucks-only entrance to the turnpike. State officials told the paper the project might be ready by the end of the decade.
The Port Authority is also looking at moving containers out of the New York port by train or barge to regional distribution centers in the Northeast, where containers would be put onto trucks. Among the locations being considered for these centers are Albany, N.Y., Camden, N.J., Bridgeport or New Haven, Conn., and Fall River, Mass.