The idea of allowing trucks in the proposed cross-Harbor rail freight tunnel suffered another setback yesterday, when it was revealed that such a move would fail to provide even short term congestion relief, as proponents had maintained. Adding trucks to the rail tunnel had previously been shown to depress rail usage in the region to levels below those that would occur if no tunnel were built and if there had been no takeover of Conrail by CSX and Norfolk-Southern.

Yesterday, a consultant to the New York City Economic Development Commission presented evidence to the EDC's Cross-Harbor Freight Advisory Committee that the region's highway network in the urban core is so cramped that providing more space through a new Hudson crossing for trucks would only worsen conditions on connecting roadways, especially on the New Jersey side. EDC staff reported that agencies pushing for trucks in the tunnel have agreed tentatively to drop the idea if the Federal Highway Administration approves of the study's methodology.

A piece still missing from EDC's cross-Harbor study is the impact of time-of-day pricing on truck traffic as an alternative or complement to new rail freight infrastructure. EDC staff says it would be hard pressed to move forward on this analysis without the help of the agencies controlling the New York-New Jersey crossings. While recent history suggests this is an enormous obstacle to progress, the Port Authority is showing signs of moving forward with analyses of toll policy innovations. The PA has said it would prefer to work jointly with the with the MTA in this area, but any MTA work on roadway pricing seems completely stalled.