Port Newark–Elizabeth Marine Terminal, a major component of the

Port of New York and New Jersey The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York metropolitan area, New York-Newark metropolitan area, encompassing the region within approximately a radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It includes the sy ...

, is the principal

container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal ...

facility for goods entering and leaving the

New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also called the Tri-State area and sometimes referred to as Greater New York, is the List of cities by GDP, largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a List of U.S. metropolitan areas by GDP, gross metropo ...

and the northeastern quadrant of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. Located on Newark Bay, the facility is run by the

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, (PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ) is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate c ...

. Its two components, Port Newark and the Elizabeth Marine Terminal (sometimes called Port Elizabeth) sit side by side within the cities of Newark and Elizabeth,

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, just east of the

New Jersey Turnpike The New Jersey Turnpike (NJTP) is a system of controlled-access highway, controlled-access toll roads in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The turnpike is maintained by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA).The Garden State Parkway, although ma ...

and

Newark Liberty International Airport Newark Liberty International Airport is a major international airport serving the New York metropolitan area. The airport straddles the boundary between the cities of Newark, New Jersey, Newark in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and E ...

Operations

, the facility was the largest on the U.S. East Coast and the second-largest in the country. Container goods typically arrive on container ships through The Narrows and the

Kill Van Kull __NOTOC__ The Kill Van Kull is a tidal strait between Staten Island, New York (state), New York, and Bayonne, New Jersey, Bayonne, New Jersey, in the United States. It is approximately long and wide and connects Newark Bay with Upper New York ...

before entering Newark Bay, a shallow body of water that has been dredged to accommodate large ships. Some ships enter Newark Bay via the Arthur Kill. The port facility consists of two main dredged slips and multiple loading cranes. Shipping containers are arrayed in large stacks visible from the New Jersey Turnpike before being loaded onto rail cars and trucks. Since 1998, the port has seen a 65% increase in traffic. In 2006, it handled more than 20% of all US imports from Germany, more than any other US port. In 2009, the major port operators at Port Newark–Elizabeth included Maher Terminals,

APM Terminals APM Terminals is a Port operator, port operating company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands. A unit of Denmark, Danish Freight transport, shipping company Maersk's Transport and Logistics division. It manages container terminals and provides ...

(part of A. P. Moller-Maersk), and Port Newark Container Terminal (owned by Ports America Inc.).

Improvements

The port received new cranes in May 2014. The height of ships serving the port is limited by the

Bayonne Bridge The Bayonne Bridge is an Through arch bridge, arch bridge that spans the Kill Van Kull between Staten Island, New York (state), New York, and Bayonne, New Jersey, Bayonne, New Jersey, United States. It carries New York State Route 440 and ...

over Kill Van Kull. This limitation grew more serious with the Panama Canal's 2016 expansion that enabled bigger, New Panamax ships to reach the port from Asia. In 2012, the Port Authority announced plans to raise the Bayonne Bridge's roadway to over the water, at a cost of around $1.7 billion. The increased navigational clearance was achieved in June 2017, and the overall bridge project was completed in 2019. Other improvements are expected to cost additional billions of dollars, including larger cranes, bigger railyard facilities, deeper channels, and expanded wharves.

Rail facilities

ExpressRail ExpressRail is a network of on- or near-dock rail yards supporting intermodal freight transport at the major container terminals of the Port of New York and New Jersey. The development of dockside trackage and rail yards for transloading has bee ...

, an initiative of the PANYNJ, provides dockside

transloading Transloading, also known as cross-docking, is the process of transferring a shipment from one mode of transportation to another. It is most commonly employed when one mode cannot be used for the entire trip, such as when goods must be shipped in ...

operations at both Port Elizabeth (operated by

Millennium Marine Rail ExpressRail is a network of on- or near-dock rail yards supporting intermodal freight transport at the major container terminals of the Port of New York and New Jersey. The development of dockside trackage and rail yards for transloading has bee ...

) and Port Newark. Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CRCX) is the

terminal railroad A switching and terminal railroad is a freight railroad company whose primary purpose is to perform local switching services or to own and operate a terminal facility. Switching is a type of operation done within the limits of a yard. It gener ...

connecting to the Chemical Coast for

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...

(CSX) and

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

(NS). The auto-processing facilities at the north end of Port Newark and the adjacent Doremus Ave. Auto Terminal are served by dockside trackage. Oak Island Yard, the major classification yard in the region, is just north of the port. NS operates an ExpressRail yard south of the port next to Jersey Gardens.

History

PSM V66 D289 Mechanical ditch digging on the newark meadows 1904

The western edge of Newark Bay was originally the Newark Meadows, shallow tidal

wetlands A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

covering about . In the 1910s, the city of Newark began excavating an angled shipping channel in the northeastern quadrant of the wetland. This became the basis of Port Newark. Work on the channel and terminal facilities on its north side accelerated during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, when the federal government took control of Port Newark. During the war, nearly 25,000 troops were stationed at the Newark Bay Shipyard. The

was formed in 1921, and the Newark Bay Channels were authorized by the

Rivers and Harbors Act Rivers and Harbors Act may refer to one of many pieces of legislation and appropriations passed by the United States Congress since the first such legislation in 1824. At that time Congress appropriated $75,000 to improve navigation on the Ohio an ...

s in 1922. Shipping operations languished after the war, and in 1927, the city of Newark started construction of Newark Airport (now known as

) on the northwestern quadrant of the wetlands that lay between Port Newark and the edge of the developed city. The port authority took over the operations of Port Newark and Newark Airport in 1948 and began modernizing both facilities and expanding them southward. The SS ''Ideal X'', considered the first container ship, made her maiden voyage as a container carrier on April 26, 1956, carrying 58 containers from Port Newark to the

Port of Houston The Port of Houston is one of the world's largest ports and serves the metropolitan area of Houston, Houston, Texas. The port is a complex of diversified public and private facilities located a few hours' sailing time from the Gulf of Mexico. Loc ...

.History - Port of New York and New Jersey - Port Authority of New York & New Jersey
Panynj.gov. Retrieved on 2014-06-23. SeaLand expanded its operations into the newly developed container terminal. In 1958, the port authority dredged another shipping channel, which straightened the course of Bound Brook, the tidal

inlet An inlet is a typically long and narrow indentation of a shoreline such as a small arm, cove, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In ...

forming the boundary between Newark and Elizabeth. Dredged materials were used to create new upland south of the new Elizabeth Channel, where the port authority constructed the Elizabeth Marine Terminal. The first shipping facility to open on the Elizabeth Channel was the new Sea-Land

Container Terminal A container port, container terminal, or intermodal terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land v ...

, which was the prototype for virtually every container terminal constructed thereafter. This new port facility antiquated most of the traditional waterfront port facilities in

New York Harbor New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay, ...

, leading to a steep decline in such areas as

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, Hoboken,

Jersey City Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

and

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. The automated nature of the facility requires far fewer workers and does not require the opening of containers before onward shipping. In 2000, a Congressional study deemed the port and other transportation, communications, oil, and chemical facilities along a stretch of New Jersey "the nation's most enticing environment for terrorists", according to a 2005 ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' article. In 2011, PANYNJ restructured the lease of a major tenant, Port Newark Container Terminal (PNCT), whose owner had been subject of the Dubai Ports World controversy. The agreement calls for a 20-year extension of PNCT's existing lease through 2050, subject to PNCT's investment of $500 million and an expansion from to about to accommodate additional volume. It is expected to generate an annual increase in container volume from Mediterranean Shipping Company, the world's second-largest shipping company, from 414,000 to 1.1 million containers by 2030. Various planned steps to accommodate this growth include deepening the Kill van Kull, raising the Bayonne Bridge, and expanding

rail freight Rail freight transport is the use of railways and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) hauled ...

facilities. Highstar Capital, the owner of PNCT's parent company Ports America is shopping the company. In 2017, a Turkish company seeks to buy Ports America. In July 2023, an Italian-flagged ship owned by the

Grimaldi Group The Grimaldi Group is a private shipping company owned by the Grimaldi family (Emanuele Grimaldi) and based in Naples, Italy. Grimaldi operates a large fleet of ro-ro, ro-ro/multipurpose, Ro-ro, con-ro multipurpose, PCTC (Pure Car and Truck Ca ...

carrying close to 1,200 vehicles for export caught fire, resulting in the death of two Newark Fire Department firefighters.

Port of New York and New Jersey facilities

Other seaport terminals of the

include: * Howland Hook Marine Terminal on Arthur Kill at Newark Bay * Port Jersey Marine Terminal on

Upper New York Bay New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay ...

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal Container terminals Economy of Newark, New Jersey Buildings and structures in Elizabeth, New Jersey Geography of Newark, New Jersey Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Port of New York and New Jersey Newark-Elizabeth Maine Terminal Transportation buildings and structures in Essex County, New Jersey Transportation in Newark, New Jersey