The agencies have written a memorandum of understanding regarding the shape of plans for the port and intend to follow it with a large-scale environmental impact statement. The they refuse to include targets for reducing trucks' overall share of port freight movement in either the agreement or the study. The Tri-State Campaign and other environmental and civic groups have pushed for the addition for almost a year. The agencies' foot-dragging bespeaks either their desire not to upset the truck-reliant status quo, their fear of failure, or their complete ignorance of the political momentum that is building against more trucks into and through NJ and NY.

In a spectacular example of this bureaucratic attitude, when the Campaign commented that the text of the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority draft regional transportation plan did not support its stated goal of reducing truck trips, the agency changed the goal to increasing truck trips, rather than incorporate the needed mode-shifting strategies.

...But Progress at Rail-Float Meeting