The deeper channels in New York (which will be dredged down to 50 ft in time to welcome the new generation of panamaxes in 2013-2014) are symptomatic of changes to be expected in the next decade. In the US, we are now in an election year, and the Department of Transportation is girding up for re-authorisation of funding for surface transportation. A late 2007 bill in Congress authorised small amounts of funding for short sea shipping, noting their potential contributions to energy conservation. Legislators also agreed to open up two semi-dormant government shipping finance programs, Title XI and the Capital Construction Fund, to fund short sea shipping.

At the national level, proposals from the two Democratic hopefuls for the presidential nod, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, which would have the government providing monies for US infrastructure, have been lost in the bright glare of television lights. An inchoate piece of legislation presently mired in the US House of Representatives would create an Infrastructure Investment Corporation, partially guaranteed by the government, with the potential to fund port projects.

In the New York region, PANYNJ has been quietly advancing its Port Inland Distribution Network (PIDN), with the objective of feeding cargo movements between the port and its hinterland through rail and barge service. Regional rail moves to destinations in New England and upstate New York, hundreds of miles from Newark Bay, have gained traction with shippers. Early experience on the PIDN barge front has suggested that ro-ro is preferable to lo-lo.

In New York, a Bridgeport to Port Newark container on barge service, on the drawing board for nearly a decade, has still not come to fruition. Now is its time, though, along with similar systems to reduce traffic on I-95 in the East, I-10 in the Gulf and I-5 and Route 101 on the US west coast.

Transportation planners enjoy connecting disparate dots, and anticipating megahub ports and the changing landside transport patterns that come in tow. They tend to think about “networks”, the PIDN being an example. Hopefully, the planners (who can direct the usage of money for ro-ro ramps, among other things) can sit at the same table with the government officials (who may be working overtime on creative funding approaches if the Democrats win) and create distribution hubs that take advantage of the clamour for short sea shipping. Integration of modes must continue to be top of mind, in the New York area, and elsewhere around the country.