Ports in New York & New Jersey Must Address the Traffic Problem

There have been some major traffic issues in New York and New Jersey. The New Jersey Motor Truck Association called on the ports to adapt to the higher volume of work and representatives of the port terminals were blaming the traffic congestion on the truckers, because they are lining up for the port before the gates open.

I think it is crazy to blame the truckers here. The ports need to adjust their hours to compensate for the increase in volume.  There should be a late night sequence of gate hours to keep the traffic flowing. This would allow the truckers to come in instead of lining up outside the gate at midnight for the next day’s gate hours. It also allows the truckers to take advantage of the less congested times. Letting lines of 300-400 trucks build up is very inefficient.

These terminals are experiencing increases as high as 100%, but still have only maintained 60 hours of open gates per week. The terminals themselves operate about 168 hours a week to load and unload cargo. Why not add some extra gate hours to prevent the traffic and stop the buildup?