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A Freight Plan for the NYMTC Region • 2.2 Challenges Identified during the Plan In general, the NYMTC region’s freight system serves to move the large volume of goods needed to keep the nation’s largest regional economic engine running. However, those who reside and do business in the region face high levels of traffic congestion, which impact the predominant mode of freight travel in the region – trucks. As residents, this increases their cost of living. As businesspeople, this forces them to pay more for freight services. There are a number of specific issues that, in aggregate, create less than efficient conditions to move freight. The five deficiencies identified below relate to broad regional issues, specific bottlenecks, or detailed terminal interconnections at particular facilities. 1. Lack of Coordination To meet the dramatic forecast growth in goods movement, the NYMTC region will need to ensure the coordinated and rational use of all of its transportation resources. Freight transportation must be viewed as an overall system. Historically, freight transportation has evolved around independent modal networks, each competing with the others in a redundant and often destructive manner. By encouraging modal systems to work together, the region can focus its energy on the more serious issue of balancing its need for convenient passenger transportation with its need for efficient and high-quality freight transportation. In this way, the region can increase its share of intermodal traffic. 2. Modal Dependence One significant and recurring deficiency is the region’s overwhelming dependence for freight transportation on a highway infrastructure that can become “gridlocked” at any time of the day. Truck gridlock causes adverse economic and environmental impacts from delays and air pollution, and limits the capacity of major rail, port, and air terminals that depend on trucks for final goods delivery. Investing in a more modally balanced and efficient freight system could alleviate many regional deficiencies, and at less cost than a strategy that seeks only to expand the regional truck infrastructure. The regional rail freight infrastructure has not been sufficiently developed to provide a competitive alternative to trucking. While rail will not become the dominant mode of transport, or even eliminate the need for expanded truck infrastructure, an improved regional rail infrastructure can accommodate a significant portion of the large forecast increase in freight volumes. 3. State of Infrastructure Freight mobility is restricted by limitations on the region’s infrastructure. The region lacks infrastructure appropriate to conducting modern freight transportation operations. Freight movements over both rail and highway systems are restricted in locations where inadequate dimensional envelopes prevent the passage of modern rail cars or truck trailers. As a result, private logistical approaches have been required to reroute freight shipments, thereby increasing costs and community impacts. Cambridge Systematics, Inc. 2-7
A Freight Plan for the NYMTC Region For example, some highway sections have lane widths that are too narrow, entrance and exit ramps that are too short, and overhead clearances that are too low to permit the safe passage of large tractor-trailers. Some stretches of railroad right-of-way also suffer from basic infrastructure constraints, such as inadequate track clearances (weight restrictions), tracks unsuited to heavier rail cars, and the lack of a direct crossharbor connection. Yards and reload facilities do not contain enough acreage to support increased shipments by rail. And everywhere, the rail and road systems are in need of overall improvement to bring them to a state of good repair. 4. Operational Limitations The simple ability to travel from one point to another is hampered by a number of key restrictions. The traffic congestion that is pervasive for a large portion of the average weekday forces truck operators, freight transportation consumers, and warehouse and distribution facilities to adopt a variety of alternative, relatively inefficient logistical patterns. Longer travel times translate into longer turnaround times which delay shipments of mail, packages, manufactured goods, raw materials, food and other items. In addition, bridges and tunnels represent “choke points” for regional trips. Truck access is hampered by a highway system that is not always contiguous for commercial vehicle movement. This constraint is largely a result of a highway system separated into distinct components consisting of mixed traffic expressways (some of which have truck restrictions) and parkways from which all commercial vehicles are banned. Portions of the region have no limited access roadways for commercial vehicles. Commercial traffic is therefore routed through the local New York City truck network. Similar problems affect the rail freight carriers in the region. Freight trains must share publicly owned and intensively used passenger rail lines. While many stakeholders in the region might like to move more freight by rail, they cannot due to this highly competitive track usage. In addition, rail freight operators also are subjected to circuitous routings due to the paucity of cross regional rail links. 5. Economic Challenges Posed by the Freight Transportation System These transportation deficiencies result in higher prices for goods and services, which can impact business locational decisions, reduce the profitability of existing companies, and otherwise hamper the region’s economic vitality. The NYMTC region has some of the highest freight shipment costs in the nation. Truck costs are double those of the national average. The high cost of land and the lack of focus on freight needs contributes to the relocation of freight-related businesses to other parts of the metropolitan area or indeed to other distant states. The lack of modal choices reduces the efficiency of the system and suppresses competition, which in turn results in higher costs. Cambridge Systematics, Inc. 2-8
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