New York City to Reduce Truck Emissions by Investing in Freight Rail Infrastructure

"To change that, city officials are investing tens of millions of dollars to upgrade the freight train’s corridors, including modernizing several rail depots," adds Kilgannon. The effort is part of $100 million plan by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) to modernize New York’s freight distribution system. 

Andrew Genn of NYCEDC describes the program, including a historical context, in an article last August in Global Railway Review.

A central policy goal of Freight NYC is to transform railroad infrastructure from having only the bare essentials to becoming a model of 21st century ingenuity. Starting in the 1960s, sparked by the expansion of the federal interstate highway system and the advent of containerisation, the city began disinvesting from its rail system.

Four-track electrified rights-of-way like the Bay Ridge Line in Brooklyn and Queens, which once carried thousands of railcars each day, shrank to a network with a single-track with few spurs carrying only dozens of railcars. Entire lines, including the Staten Island Railroad, simply closed when its major industrial customer moved operations out of the city.

The other short line that will see considerable investment from NYCEDC moves over water as well as land. Unlike its Queens-based counterpart, New York New Jersey Rail is publicly owned, established in 2005 and acquired by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2008.

Credit: Cross Harbor Freight Program, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The short line marine railroad relies on barges and tugboats to transport freight rail cars from Greenville Yard in Jersey City, New Jersey, over New York Harbor to the 65th Street Yard in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, adjacent to the Brooklyn Army Terminal (see post). 

The NYCEDC investment in Sunset Park is projected to result in 5,000 new jobs, reported Jaime DeJesus last July in the Brooklyn Reporter.

“Freight NYC is an investment in our city’s future,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “By modernizing our approach to shipping, we will create thousands of good-paying jobs while keeping our streets safer and cleaner.”

And that investment will boost business for NYNJR's sister shortline in Queens.

"For now, about 15 percent of New York & Atlantic’s rail cars are floated over from New Jersey, but that percentage will increase because of an expansion of the Cross Harbor Rail Freight Program, one of the country’s few remaining floating systems for rail freight," adds Kilgannon of the Times.

• New York Harbor May Get a New Freight Tunnel from NYC to New Jersey, Feb 2, 2018
• The Floating Freight Rail Line That Crosses the Hudson River in NYC, Feb. 2, 2017 [with video]