Chapter 3 The Transportation System - New York Metropolitan ...

Chapter 3This Genset train was purchased with CMAQ funds and is used by CSX out of the Oak Point Yard in the Bronx.8. Rail FreightHistory and geography have combinedto limit rail freight access between theNYMTC planning area and pointssouth and west (for more information onfreight please see Plan 2040: Appendix 8for the Regional Freight Plan - InterimPlan Summary Report). Six of the 10NYMTC counties are on islands east ofthe Hudson River and Arthur Kill; onlyRockland lies west of the Hudson. Whileeight vehicular bridges and tunnels spanthe Kill Van Kull and the Hudson Riverwithin the NYMTC planning area, onlythe Arthur Kill Lift Bridge brings railfreight traffic to Staten Island from thenational rail network in New Jersey andbeyond and that rail service is limited toStaten Island. In 1974 a fire closed thePoughkeepsie railroad bridge which wasthe only rail crossing between New YorkCity and Albany. 106 Since then, to reachanyplace in the NYMTC planning areaexcept Staten Island, freight trains havetraveled north up the West side of theHudson, across the Hudson using theCastleton Cutoff, and then back downthe East side of the Hudson (sharingcommuter rail track), a detour of 240miles.East of the Hudson much the regionalrail network is primarily dedicated topassenger service. This contributes to theNYMTC planning area shipping onlyapproximately one percent of its freightby rail. However, the PANYNJ has takensteps to encourage more freight. InSeptember 2008, PANYNJ bought NewYork New Jersey Rail LLC, a companythat transfers rail cars by barge betweenthe Greenville Yards in Jersey City andthe 65th Street Yard in Brooklyn. ThePort Authority also embarked upon a$118.1 million expansion of the facilityto allow it to handle significantly highervolumes, including foodstuffs, lumberand construction materials, biodiesel,and plastics eastbound and scrap metals,autofluff, and municipal solid wastewestbound. Planned improvements includenew, larger carfloats, a replacementtransfer bridge, new locomotives, newfendering in Greenville and Brooklyn,and new supporting track. The project isprojected to take 360,000 trucks off theroad annually, freeing up space in trans-Hudson tunnels and bridges.Staten Island has also played a large partin converting truck freight to rail freight.Following the creation of ExpressRailat the New York Container Terminal innorthwest Staten Island, the terminal sawan increase from 451 containers movedby rail per month in 2007 to more than5,000 per month in 2008. Capacity forthe new facility is 100,000 containersa year. Five tracks in the facility (withplans to expand to eleven) connect to thereactivated Staten Island Railroad, whichconnects to the Conrail Main Line inElizabeth, NJ New York Economic DevelopmentCorporation, on behalf of theNew York Container Terminal in StatenIsland, also received $1.55 million inorder to replace one locomotive with anew, environmentally friendly model. 107Less than one percent of freight on LongIsland is shipped by rail. 108 However, ef-The Transportation System 3-35