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“ The on-street backups waiting to enter the depot have remained significant,” the Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers said in its April newsletter,“ Desperate truckers often line up several hours before the depot opens, contributing to the backups and causing traffic delays.”
Although sporadic, motor carriers have reported that drivers face four- and five-hour wait times to get into Port Newark Depot, putting truckers at risk of running out of service hours, according to Lisa Yakomin, president of the Bi-State association.
Yakomin said Port Newark Depot is trying to manage the truck queues with a few relief measures, including signs showing the waiting times, adding another container handling machine, and providing return instructions to drivers the day prior.
But the sheer volume of empties can still overwhelm
Building for tomorrow
NY-NJ’ s Port Newark terminal takes first steps in next major expansion
By Michael Angell
The Port of New York and New Jersey’ s third-busiest marine terminal unveiled $ 100 million in new container handling equipment and related facilities, the first step in a $ 1 billion plan to add a new berth and more rail capacity for its main customer, Mediterranean Shipping Co.
Port Newark Container Terminal( PNCT) held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a new maintenance shop designed for the terminal’ s new, larger straddle carriers, which can span four-high container stacks. Along with the new shop, PNCT took delivery of the first 15 of the straddle carriers, with another 20 set for delivery by early 2027.
The new yard equipment and shop are the first phase of PNCT’ s plan to increase container volumes by 40 % over the next three years, its Chief Executive Jim Pellicio told the Journal of Commerce. PNCT, jointly owned by Ports America and MSC’ s Terminal Investment Limited( TiL), eventually plans to replace its entire fleet with 150 of the new straddle carriers, effectively increasing yard capacity by nearly a third through higher stacks.
The new fleet will also be entirely diesel-electric hybrid as PNCT switches an increasing amount of its energy use to renewables. Over the past decade, PNCT has installed a solar array over its truck lanes and parking lot that takes up the equivalent of 12 acres of land, Pellicio said, generating half of the terminal’ s energy.
“ This $ 100 million is a down payment on where PNCT has to go next,” Pellicio said.“ The maintenance facility is built to support a much larger terminal than what we have today.”
PNCT’ s last upgrade cycle started in 2014, with a $ 600 million investment that included adding about 17 acres of terminal space, strengthening its three berths for larger ships, and adding two ultra-large ship cranes. By 2020, that project had increased PNCT’ s nominal capacity to about 2 million TEUs, up from 1.4 million TEUs.
“ There are no ships that need a 55-foot depth today, but you better build it today because they won’ t come otherwise.”
The next investment cycle will bring PNCT’ s capacity to about 2.8 million TEUs, Pellicio said, adding that the terminal could add another 150 longshore jobs by 2029 due to the expansion.
A big part of that upgrade will be an additional 68 acres on the terminal’ s eastern end. The new space will come from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’ s $ 198 million rehabilitation of a general cargo berth on the Newark peninsula’ s southeastern end, along with the relocation of other port tenant properties to make way for container operations.
The rehabilitation of Newark’ s southeastern portion will provide PNCT another 400 feet of berth space on its eastern end by 2028. PNCT is also renovating another 700 feet of berth space on its western end, which will turn it into a four-berth facility.
Pellicio said the additional space would allow PNCT to handle two 18,000-TEU ships simultaneously, along with a 9,000-TEU ship. Currently, its three berths can handle two 9,000-TEU ships and one 18,000-TEU ship.
Although ships of that size will also require further dredging of the NY-NJ port to a 55-foot depth, Pellicio said it’ s important to have PNCT ready for that next step.
“ There are no ships that need a 55-foot depth today, but you better build it today because they won’ t come otherwise,” he said.
Along with the new equipment and berth, PNCT plans to add an on-dock rail yard at its eastern end, which should allow containers to move more easily to railcars. PNCT currently relies on yard hostlers to ferry containers over a flyover bridge to its rail yard adjacent to the New Jersey Turnpike.
PNCT already leads the port in terms of inland cargo moves, with about 24 % of its containers moving out on rail compared with a port-wide average of about 15 %. Pellicio said the terminal needs more intermodal capacity because“ MSC has a significant amount of rail containers.”
“ The shipping company might say‘ just take my New York boxes and leave the rail boxes for Savannah or Baltimore,’” Pellicio said.“ I’ m saying to them with this investment, take all the boxes off at PNCT. We will have the berths to do it and the rail to do it.”
email: michael. angell @ spglobal. com
32 Journal of Commerce | June 1, 2026 www. joc. com