Port Authority Aims to Maximize Available Space For Cargo in New York and New Jersey
Elements of 30-year plan were outlined by Port Authority of New York and New Jersey port executive at a recent Transportation Research Forum
Port facilities owned by Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will undergo upgrades and expansions in the coming years.
Months after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey wrapped up its 30-year plan several years ago, the pandemic upended daily operations. What used to be a predictable ebb and flow of cargo arrivals over the course of a year has become volume swings that challenge the supply chain, according to Beth Rooney, the bistate agency's port director. In 2025, its volumes exceeded what the master plan predicted for the year by more than 4%.
Rooney discussed post-pandemic needs at a panel this month in New York City hosted by the Transportation Research Forum, an independent sector research group. Despite new normals at the authority’s five terminals, Rooney said she still feels confident about almost all of the agency's forecast for the next three decades and infrastructure changes it has planned to meet rising imports.
Some of the largest projects scheduled are in the waterways. The authority has plans to deepen 28 miles of federal navigation channels to 55 ft, which would be 5 ft deeper than they are now. It took 27 years to complete the previous deepening project that wrapped up in 2016, but the authority knew during the construction that it would need to dig farther into the rock, Rooney said, as the new standard vessel now is larger. Deepening an extra 5 ft will take 18 years and $10 billion, she added. About three-quarters of project funding will be federal, and construction should start in 2027.
Berths and wharves are also due for remodels. Cleaner waters have fostered thriving wildlife like shipworms that bore wood from the outside in and vice versa. “Many of our piles that are holding up the wharf infrastructure went from a two foot-diameter pile to essentially a number two pencil,” Rooney said. The authority is spending $180 million on repairs, and about $14 billion will be needed to completely rebuild for storm resilience and the upcoming 55 ft depth.
Another priority is getting storage organized. Warehouses near the wharf have been largely phased out, but storage of imported items can be chaotic—road salt piles might be next to vehicles, for example. “On windy days, the automobile manufacturers would be screaming,” Rooney said. Pre-Covid, an in-house assessment also found that not all tenants leasing property at the terminals maximized their space. Some had 3,000 containers per acre per year, while others only had 80 or 90.
To address these issues, the Port Authority is creating Port Districts, or zones where similar items will be located. New land leases, recently resigned for all but one container terminal, also include performance reporting meant to encourage more containers per acre. Eventually, the ports will also have parking decks for vehicle storage, which could be particularly useful for consolidated EV charging. The authority is also eliminating goods that damage the ports themselves, such as scrap metal, which can spark fires that take days to extinguish.
Other site modifications include re-siting the pumphouse for potable and fire water at the Port Newark–Elizabeth Marine Terminal and finishing the Port Street Corridor Improvement Project, which is softening the curves of roadways where tight turns have led to fatalities.
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Conti Civil is the main contractor on this $100 million project and should complete work in May.
In a more distant future, the authority might see new infrastructure for hydrogen fuel. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority has invested $13 million toward a station for refilling four hydrogen-powered drayage trucks at Port Newark. The site should open in the next few weeks.
