"The report said making $260 million in structural repairs would extend the useful life of the span by more than 40 years. The report said the cost to demolish and build a new bridge is estimated at $2.7 billion."

40 years isn’t that long when the work to do the repairs probably wouldn’t be complete for another ten years. Not saying I can think of any better solutions; the whole thing’s a mess.

If you think this $5 billion Turnpike boondoggle is not making environmental or transportation sense, please join a broad coalition including EmpowerNJ, EnvironmentNJ, Hudson County Complete Streets, BikeJC, SafeStreetsJC, City Council, many neighborhood associations, and others at a rally this Saturday 11/12 at Mary Benson Park to tell Murphy to stop this highway and invest in so many better alternatives instead.

Bike ride at 10am starting from Grove St
Rally at 12pm on the ball field at Mary Benson

RSVP here: https://actionnetwork.org/events/rsvp-now-to-join-us-for-a-solidarity-rally-and-bike-ride-in-jersey-city

Rain date of Sunday 11/13, same time, same place.

I actually really like the idea of building a new bridge and having the old one rehabbed with added BRT Lanes. Anyone who travels past 14a knows that there's a tremendous amount of container cargo coming out of the port and that adding a couple of lanes of bridge would ease the problems there. They could even have the lanes on the old one reverse like the third tube at the Lincoln.

But anyone with a brain knows that widening from 14a to the tunnel is idiotic. You'll just be creating a larger parking lot!

All that said, I would love to understand the reasoning that the containers from the port aren't being put on rail cars instead of trucks. Rail is just so much more efficient and environmental.

I would imagine it’s because the rail is at capacity. I see freight trains running across that bridge and up through bayonne multiple times per day.

I'd be surprised if 'multiple trains per day' is anywhere near capacity, but I really don't know how to find out. I recently read that only 25% of long haul cargo in the US goes by rail, which seems scandalously low. The average ship has 15k containers, that's a lot of fucking trucks burning diesel needed if it doesn't move out by rail!!!

One of my favorite factoids: The PA was created a century ago to build a rail crossing over the lower Hudson or the Harbor. They built a huge empire of ports and vehicular bridges, but never accomplished their original mission!

> All that said, I would love to understand the reasoning that the containers from the port aren't being put on rail cars instead of trucks. Rail is just so much more efficient and environmental.

It's because we keep expanding the roads. It's called induced demand. Attempting to solve the problem is actually what creates the problem.

Force them to use tracks, and they will. And, it will be better for everyone.

Even if the % of tonnage hauled is low compared to trucks it doesn't mean they aren't congestion issues in our local area and across the network. Clearance limits and operational fluidity are big concerns. The primary freight main lines in lower Hudson County are the Passaic & Harsimus Branch which is double tracked and runs via Newark Ironbound into South Kearny before entering JC in the Marion section of town. The other line is the National Docks Secondary. Coming out of Oak Island Yard in Newark, the line crosses Newark Bay on a double tracked bridge, after passing the turnout for Port Jersey and the NYNJ Railroad car float yard, the line condenses to a single track. There is passing siding between Linden Avenue and the HBLR yard. Afterwards the line condenses onto a single track viaduct before entering a tunnel under the PATH yard. The line remains singled track as enters Long Dock tunnel before meeting the P&H in the Marion Section of town. Up until 2010, one of the big issues that hampered this line's usefulness to dispatchers and operational planners were height restrictions on the rail cars that could operate on the line. Redundant overheard bridges were removed, and tunnel clearances were improved. Another issue is that many modern warehouse facilities aren't suited to being rail served. Additionally, in an ideal world, freight and passenger rail operation would be segregated.

That line is not at capacity... Its lightly used compared to other lines that have a freight train every hour. That can also easily be upgraded as it was mostly cut back to a single track but the ROW supports 2-3 tracks.

Watch this video to understand reason why so few freight goes by rail.

They are, PANYNJ built an massive rail container facility there as part of their ExpressRail project.

Wikipedia article on all four ExpressRail facilities

take the money saved and use it on a public transit project instead

Fantastic answer! Thanks!

<Another issue is that many modern warehouse facilities aren't suited to being rail served.

Surely this is a choice that can be changed with the proper incentives, not a natural logistical feature. Before the Interstates all factories and warehouses were rail served. We let Detroit destroy that infrastructure.

I get sick every time I drive the Cross Bronx and it's so back to back trucks it looks like train, except they're stopped dead burning diesel for hours. We can do better.

There is already a rail terminal in Bayonne for middle mile container movement.

Containers going by truck is the last mile delivery to customers in the northeast region.

You're welcome. The answer is sort of yes and sort of no. To borrow from a railroad forum, "The old model was to have a few warehouses but use rapid rail or air shipping to get the goods to the customer in a few days. Good for UPS, FedEx, USPS, railroads, etc. The new model is to have the goods within a day's or an hour's reach. Very bad for the rails, not good for the others."

Long haul freight does not respond to induced demand the way commuters do. It's pure economics. We subsidized roads and fuel, creating competitive advantages for trucks over rail while letting them offload their externalities like pollution and traffic. Rail lines had to build and maintain their entire system themselves, what's not to like having the taxpayers do it for them!

Like most of the problems we face, carbon taxes would go a long way towards solving this. Unfortunately this country's leadership is likely heading in the exact opposite direction starting tomorrow.

Why is it so hard? Back in the day JC was lousy with rail spurs to warehouses. And with containers those trains could be moving in and out far, far faster than the breakbulk days. If there were incentives to build on them, I'm sure there's plenty of sites in NJ with legacy rail spurs.

That doesn't jibe with the recent stat I read that only 25% of long haul is by rail.

Have government officials considered spending the $4.7 billion to add an extra lane each way to the Holland Tunnel under the river (so making it 3 lanes each way under the river)? If that's what's causing the traffic, then let's fix the root of the problem rather than making enhancements around the perimeter of the problem.

A. The rise of "Just in Time Logistics" which drastically reduced the need for traditional warehouses. B. Intermodal traffic "container traffic and truck trailer" has atrocious profit margins for railroads despite increased intermodal rail traffic. C. The fulfillment center shipping model does not lend itself to rail transportation quite well.
D. Effective freight rail systems aren't measured by speed but by efficiency. Railroads are excellent for bulk shipments for this reason.

The number is actually closer to 30-35%. Rail transportation works best for longer distances but it not well suited for short distances. It wouldn't make sense for a shipper to put a container full of good on a train, if that container destination was to a warehouse in the tri-state area. However, if I'm a shipper and I'm sending goods to a distribution center in the Midwest it makes perfect sense. The percentage however low, in 2019 still amounted to 1.8 billions tons of freight. It would take an additional 99 million trucks to move that amount of tonnage.

I can think of two immediate reasons.

1 - Long haul customers are not all connected to rail.

2 - Railroads are swimming in profits and smaller volume customers may find it cheaper to use trucking. Couple this with #1 - If I'm receiving only a few containers per month to my Missouri business it may be cheaper for me to have them trucked from Norfolk. Moving rail to Chicago then on road last mile might cost me more overall.

Induced demand is a thing, but also have you considered what is on the other side of the Holland Tunnel?

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The problem with this video I have is that it ignores certain realities about the limitations of railroads as mode of transportation. That is not to say that the issues he brings up are not accurate, its just that it doesn't account for changing realities in the logistics sphere since the 1960s. Changes in industrial/production philosophies, containerization, rise of the interstate highway system, the brokenness of the e-commerce model, etc. These realities exist whether you nationalize or the major railroads completely change their mindset overnight. There needs to be a broad change in US Transportation policy, where the costs of the damages put on our road network by trucks are adequately accounted for. To nationalize without addressing this basic issue is futile. Even if this issue is rectified there are still issues inherent to freight rail transportation you'd struggle to solve.

>Effective freight rail systems aren't measured by speed but by efficiency.

Interesting. I'm a ship nerd not a rail nerd, and with shipping time=money because the cargo value of tens of thousands of containers is so high, and it's all financed, with interest accruing every day at sea. The biggest container ships will pay a $1m toll at the Panama Canal because it's cheaper than the time to go round the Horn. (Fun fact I learned visiting the canal!)

People often wonder why we don't revive sail cargo ships to reduce fuel consumption, and thats why. The last market for sail cargo was the Australia to Europe grain trade before WW2.

It's more that people expect door to door delivery and for cheap.

The US still moves an insane amount of stuff by rail.

But nobody collects their purchases personally by a rail depot anymore and carry's them home. Or do all their shopping within carrying distance of a train station. That is at one point how commerce in the US was done. Everyone expects a truck to take it to their house, or at least bring it to stores in their freight rail free neighborhood.

There's a pretty compelling argument for banning free shipping, and perhaps minimum shipping fees. Small businesses have been arguing it for years. At the very least it would help smaller businesses. But it would encourage combined shipping and create more efficiencies in the system.

You're off the scent. We are talking long haul container shipping, not local deliveries. I said 25%, u/trafficSNAFU said 25-35%, but its still by far a minority of LONG HAUL shipping. Retail shipping is probably a tiny fraction of ALL cargo traveling the country.

You've just described how they do respond to induced demand.

Build nice roads and subsidize them, and they will start using them despite not needing them before, then they will become more reliant on them. Which is induced demand.

A bike ride isn't going to fix this. Politicians losing their jobs or kickbacks will fix this.

LMAO they definitely aren't aware of what's on the other end ROFL

There is currently a trucking study underway by Hudson County planners. If you have time/availability to comment, here’s a link: https://www.hcnj.us/trucking-study/

Even IF you liked widening highways, this is only an approach road to a tunnel with another adjacent approach road causing the backup with traffic lights in front of it leading to a congested city. If they really wanted to increase their throughput in the slightest, They should make a bus only lane or at the very least, bury the highway in front of the current tunnel portal to allow development on top. At least then you can pay for it without tax dollars or at least less tax dollars.

Thanks for providing that link.

The problem is that railroads post 1960's struggled to compete with trucks in the less-than-carload freight arena. If you're a low volume shipper, you won't find any coast savings going to the effort of putting your container onto a train, now if you had multiple containers reliably going between the same origin and destination than it starts to make sense. The same basic logic applies to freight traffic shipped in rail cars (box cars, hoppers, tank cars, etc). To borrow from another railroad forum "Anything not going by truck already with the advent of cheap trucking, and still going through some sort of railroad freight house, containerization took care of. There was no reason to put it on a truck, then offload that at a freight house, load that onto a car, offload that at destination, load that back into a trailer, then deliver -- when you could just drop the trailer onto a train."

I'm a train nerd and I find the challenges of modern railroading enthralling, if not frustrating. This quote from an article on Freightwaves sums of the situation quite well. "The basic attractiveness of carload freight is its equivalent load factor, tonnage carrying capacity, and cheaper cost per ton-mile relative to truck. A modern 60- to 70-ton boxcar, to cite one example, offers the carrying capacity of three to four truckloads. The volume advantage allows a railroad company to charge the shipper considerably less than what a shipper is charged by a truck service on a per ton-mile price quote. A rail movement might cost in the 4.5 cents per ton-mile price range versus a truck price in the 9 cents or higher range. The trade-off to the shipper, however, can often be a higher inventory carrying cost because carloads arrives a day early or a day late as much as 40% of the time. That poor carload performance makes it difficult for logisticians to schedule."

Haha, yes I figured out you were a train nerd! Nerds unite! What never gets enough due is the fuel efficiency of rail, what I've read at 25% that of trucking. That it's only half the cost says we don't tax fuel enough.

Or just better accounting for how much wear and tear trucks put on our roads and bridges.

In its present form yes, additionally widening the existing viaduct over Gateway Field would be politically contentious, so would be expanding the Waldo Tunnel and while you could double track Long Dock Tunnel you would succumb to clearance limits which would prohibit certain freight cars from going through, at that point you would have to do some serious engineering/reconstruction work to accommodate those cars while double tracking the tunnel. Its a lot of money for comparatively little benefit. The construction of the Waverly Loop, which was completed this year, bypasses this problem entirely. Double stack container trains can leave Port Jersey go over the Newark Bay Bridge and than turn onto the Passaic & Harsimus Branch to continue north. Here is the slideshow from the NJTPA's Freight Initiatives Meeting which included reps from the Port Authority and Conrail. Its provides details on current projects, future projects and hard numbers for the ExpressRail facilities.

I forgot to make a small caveat. Intermodal traffic (containers and truck trailer) which typically operate in their own unit trains and are usually under stricter time constraints than regular general traffic and bulk commodities.