Global Terminal extends hours in response to congestion

Port of New York and New Jersey terminals have seen additional containers from “extra loaders.”    The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the Global Container Terminals GCT Bayonne terminal will be open this week for extended hours, following heavy congestion in and around roadways leading to the terminal last week.
   “Please be advised that GCT Bayonne (Global) will again be open all this week for double moves until 1800, excepting reefers which are 1700, and OOG which remains 1500,” said a notice posted by the Port Authority. The terminal was also open on Saturday.
   Last week, the agency said trucks have been arriving earlier and earlier to begin queuing at GGT Bayonne “hours before the terminal gates open. The result is that traffic is blocked on all access roads to the facility including Route 440 and the NJ Turnpike extension well before the gates open. Our past experience is that once we open, the line is pulled into the terminal around the 11:00 hour,” it said.
   “In addition to the obvious traffic issues this creates, the secondary effect is that the yard becomes flooded with the same trucks previously on line and the delivery process is negatively impacted.”
   The agency added, “It would be beneficial to all parties if the trucks arrived more regularly throughout the available gate hours.”
   Jeff Bader, the chief executive officer of Golden Carriers and president of the Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers said congestion the port is seeing is “strictly caused by volume.”
   The port said in the first two months of this year container volumes are up 11.2 percent, as more fully loaded ships and about a dozen “extra loaders” – those not associated with a specific liner service – arrived. Some Asian shippers who faced delays at U.S. West Coast ports earlier this year during the protracted negotiations with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, chose to put cargo on ships bound for U.S. East Coast ports such as New York and Savannah.
   Bader said, “When terminal operators tell us not to send trucks to the pier, what are we supposed to do? It doesn’t make any sense.” He said terminals should open earlier or close later when there is congestion.
   Leslie Hare, ocean import coordinator at Shea Trucking, based in Farmingdale, N.Y., said that if truckers don’t line up early in the day, it is likely they may not be able to move more than one container per day.