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

A Freight Plan for the NYMTC Region
Actions were analyzed based on the following two categories of impact criteria, which
reflect the implementation of project goals and objectives:
• Transportation criteria, including vehicle miles of travel, hours of travel, modal diversion,
and a planning-level assessment of local traffic operations. Impacts were disaggregated
by subregion, vehicle type, and time of day. Where a specific physical
change in the roadway network was proposed and sufficiently defined, the impact
was assessed using the NYMTC Best Practices Model (BPM). In other cases, qualitative
assessments or analyses prepared by strategy proponents were used to assess the
likely impacts on highway and/or railroad operations.
• Non-transportation criteria, including impacts on the environment, and on local
communities, economic development, regional connectivity, project feasibility (physical
and institutional), and use of/dependence on emerging technology. The environmental
and community assessment involved a scan of sensitive environmental conditions
within likely project boundaries using existing sources of data, including geographic
information system (GIS) maps and project assessments done by proponents. Economic
development and connectivity were evaluated together by assessing the potential of
projects to improve regional connectivity to major freight hubs. Project feasibility was
assessed by reviewing existing sources regarding physical feasibility and applying the
team’s knowledge of institutional issues in the region. Some actions addressed new
technology applications rather than physical changes to the infrastructure.
The analysis focused on specific travel corridors used for freight. Figure 3.3 illustrates
the corridors used by trip purpose. Figure 3.4 shows that the greatest number of
freight trips on the highway system occurs around the region’s core. As discussed in
Section 2.0, congestion and physical barriers on the region’s highway system represent
a major obstacle to efficient freight movement. However, as shown in Figure 3.5,
physical and operational constraints in the region’s rail corridors are no less of a
problem, so that in most cases rail is not a viable alternative to roadway transport.
From a regional freight movement perspective, addressing deficiencies in these core
corridors is the most critical task for a regional plan and is thus the focus of this report.
Deficiencies in cross-harbor goods movement are addressed by proposed improvements
on the Northern (I-95) and Southern (I-278) Crossing corridors of the Hudson
River, which link the region to most North American destinations west of the Hudson.
Deficiencies in intraregional goods movement are addressed by improvements to the
two Eastern corridors (I-278 and I-678) and a South Brooklyn corridor, which connect
the two Hudson River crossings and link the region’s core to Long Island and other
easterly points such as New England.
Priority corridors are as follows:
• The Northern Crossing corridor, consisting of the George Washington Bridge, Cross
Bronx and Major Deegan Expressways;
• The Southern Crossing corridor, consisting of the Goethals Bridge or Outerbridge
Crossing, Staten Island Expressway, and Verrazano Narrows Bridge;
Cambridge Systematics, Inc. 3-3