(The following article by Jennifer Moroz was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on December 9.)
PHILADELPHIA — If you think the number of tractor trailers on New Jersey roads is out of hand now, just wait.
According to federal projections, the amount of freight passing through the Garden State will be 67 percent greater in 2020 than it was in 1998. Meanwhile, the number of trucks, the prime movers of freight, is expected to skyrocket 80 percent.
That would mean more accidents, more pollution, and more taxpayer money going to pay for more wear and tear on roads.
Such was the scenario presented yesterday by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign to justify improving the state’s freight rail system. The group, which works to reduce negative effects of cars and trucks in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York, sponsored a meeting in Trenton to discuss rail as a way to lighten the load carried by trucks.
Those in attendance, including state transportation officials, legislators, and railroad and shipping interests, agreed that the distribution of goods was key to the state’s economy, and that rail was important to keeping the system running efficiently. Several pointed out that New Jersey, a state built around railroads, already had much of the necessary infrastructure.
“We have to put back what we stopped using and neglected, and make it usable again,” said Sam Crane, an executive at Maher Terminals, which operates out of the Port of New York and New Jersey.
The port, which serves 34 states and is the largest on the East Coast, drove much of the conversation yesterday. A plan to dredge the shipping channel into the ports to 50 feet would open the way for much larger container ships – and even more freight.
One idea presented was to build “regional rail shuttles” emanating from the port area to reduce congestion on major truck routes.
Those who attended agreed that they would have to work together to draft a comprehensive plan and sell it to the public, which would have to pay for at least part of its implementation.
It can be a tough sell, said Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D., Middlesex), chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee. Currently, he said, the state has budgeted a mere $10 million a year for rail freight improvements.
“It’s easy to see from a public-relations standpoint why that’s happening,” he said. “More people are in cars than on freight tracks.”
And many people, he added, don’t like the idea of freight passing through their communities.
Still, the alternative, many pointed out, could be worse: an onslaught of tractor trailers.
Each of those, said Jon Orcutt, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, causes as much wear and tear as 2,000 to 3,000 cars. Based on the projected increase in truck numbers, he said, an extra $3.7 billion would be needed in road repair and maintenance over the next 16 years.
Orcutt said he hoped the meeting would form the basis for a coalition to lobby the state to devote more resources to rail freight, and counteract what he called anti-rail forces. Some legislators have suggested halting proposed expansions of the rail freight system in North Jersey until a one-year analysis of their effects – and effectiveness – is complete.