nymtc regional freight plan - New York Metropolitan Transportation ...

A Freight Plan for the NYMTC Region
Figure 2.13
Limited Truck Access to Airports
Low tunnel heights and
congestion through
Manhattan limit access
to Newark Airport.
Trucks not allowed
on Grand Central
Parkway access route
to LaGuardia.
Congested Van Wyck
Expressway is the
only limited access
route to JFK.
Time-sensitive air freight relies on efficient truck access to final delivery sites.
2.3.3 Inadequate Infrastructure and Underused Modes
The rail freight infrastructure is constrained by four factors: the dominance of passenger
trains (see Figure 2.14); the lack of major rail freight crossings south of Albany; vertical/
lateral clearance restrictions that limit the use of modern rail equipment (see Figures 2.15
and 2.16); and limited land availability for major yards and warehousing facilities. As a
result, only about one percent of goods (in tons) shipped in the NYMTC region travel by
rail. 4 Nationally, rail accounts for a significant share of freight movement (16 percent in
tons). Table 2.1 compares the New York Metropolitan region to the 25 largest Bureau of
Economic Analysis (BEA) metropolitan regions in the country. Even accounting for the
much higher rail mode share in the New Jersey part of the region than in the NYMTC part
(about nine percent versus one percent), the New York/northern New Jersey region as a
whole has a lower rail mode share than all of the 25 largest BEAs except for Boston. This
pattern is shown in Figure 2.17, which highlights rail freight volume across the country
and in the region. Railroad companies are relatively undercapitalized and hence unable to
meet their own capital needs (see Figure 2.18 and the financing discussion in Section 6.0).
However, as shown in Table 2.2, rail has significant efficiency and environmental benefits
relative to truck transport.
4
Reebie Associates.
Cambridge Systematics, Inc. 2-13