Port Authority Board approves purchase, redevelopment of Greenville Yards

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Board of Commissioners authorized the agency to move ahead with the purchase and redevelopment of Greenville Yards, a century-old rail yard in Jersey City, N.J., that will serve as the lynchpin to removing up to 360,000 trash trucks annually from trans-Hudson crossings and New Jersey highways by moving New York City's sealed containerized solid waste and other commodities by barge and rail when appropriate facilities are completed by 2013.

Greenville Yards today
forms the western terminus for New York New Jersey Rail LLC, which is owned by
the Port Authority and operates the last cross-harbor car float system on the
Hudson River. Under this system, freight is loaded on rail cars and the cars
are moved by barge from Greenville to Brooklyn, N.Y., where they are either
delivered to local customers or handed over to another railroad to reach their
destination.

The Board authorized $118.1
million for the overall project, part of which will go toward the purchase of
approximately 47 acres of upland property and 72 acres of riparian rights at
Greenville, and part of which will go toward the existing rail car float system
operating between Greenville Yards and sites at 51st and 65th streets in
Brooklyn, N.Y. Funding for this authorization will come from federal and state
grants and Port Authority funds.

A new barge-to-rail
facility, to be built at Greenville Yards, will allow for municipal solid waste
and other commodities to be barged from New York to New Jersey in watertight
sealed containers and taken out of New Jersey by rail. Currently, the majority
of New York City’s waste is trucked through the Port Authority’s Hudson River
crossings in unsealed, open-topped trucks with fabric coverings and continues
out of state using New Jersey’s roads, causing negative environmental
consequences, worsening traffic congestion, and overburdening the region’s
bridge and highway infrastructure.

Port Authority Chairman
Anthony R. Coscia said, "Our bridges and tunnels are overburdened with
truck traffic, and today’s action provides an environmentally sound
alternative. It will provide a host of important benefits – reduced congestion
for those who use our crossings, a better quality of life for the people of our
region, and lower bridge and tunnel maintenance costs for the Port
Authority."

New York City plans to ship
an estimated 120,000 to 180,000 containers of solid waste per year through two
barge-to-rail transfer points on the western side of the Port of New York and
New Jersey. If Greenville is used for this purpose, it would handle about half
of the container stream, with the balance going to the other selected facility.
In order to meet this demand, the Port Authority will make improvements to
decades-old track and infrastructure, as well as construct a modern
barge-to-rail transfer facility. Today’s Board action will allow these
improvements to move forward.

The purchase of Greenville
Yards and the rehabilitation of track and infrastructure there also provides
the Port Authority with major benefits, including reduced costs to maintain its
bridges from the wear and tear caused by daily truck traffic. Each year, the
Port Authority spends more than $30 million maintaining the deck of the George
Washington Bridge upper roadway, due primarily to truck traffic. In addition,
the reduction of up to 360,000 trash truck trips a year will significantly
reduce the levels of harmful emissions currently generated by truck shipments.

The barge-to-rail facility
to be built at Greenville Yards will connect two railroads: CSX Transportation
and Norfolk Southern. Since freight trains are not allowed in Amtrak’s North
River Tunnels and the Poughkeepsie Bridge was closed in 1974, the cross-harbor
car float system is the only Hudson River rail freight crossing within 140
miles of New York City.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler
(D-NY), the senior Northeastern member of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, hailed the Port Authority’s. This important
acquisition, funded through an appropriation secured by Rep. Nadler, will
further the Port Authority’s efforts to take trucks off of the roads.

"This acquisition and
redevelopment of Greenville Yards is a major milestone in our collective city,
state and federal efforts to move away from truck freight and toward more
sustainable and efficient means of transporting goods," said Nadler.  "This
advancement of rail freight is good news for the environment, for the reduction
of truck traffic, and for economic development throughout New Jersey and New
York. I am pleased that I was able to provide federal funding to make this
acquisition possible, and I want to thank Governors Chris Christie and David
Paterson, Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward, and Port Authority
Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni for their crucial work on this issue. I
look forward to working with the Port Authority and both states as we address
our region’s overdependence on polluting trucks."

The Port Authority is
currently undertaking an Environmental Impact Statement on the Cross Harbor
Freight Movement Project to rationalize the movement of goods in the region. New
York receives more than $1 trillion worth of freight per year – everything from
food to furniture – mostly by trucks coming over the roads and bridges of
Northern New Jersey and the five boroughs. Trucks transport more than 80
percent of our region’s freight, while rail handles less than 2 percent.