Sailing Forward

By Bethann Rooney, Port Director, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Member, AAPA Board of Directors

At our annual State of the Port event earlier this year, I channeled Rocky Balboa to describe this moment in our industry: Global shipping ain’t about how hard you can hit.

It’s about how hard you can get hit but still keep sailing forward.

The hits have certainly been coming. The Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore. The first coast-wide dockworker strike in nearly 50 years. A tariff roller coaster. Tension in the Middle East. Any one of those would have been a defining moment for this industry. We got all of them in quick succession.

We kept sailing forward.

Amidst all those jabs and right hooks, our job has been to keep sight of what future rounds will hold: More cargo is undeniably coming. In 2025, the Port of New York and New Jersey finished the year as the nation’s second-busiest port for moving loaded containers, the result of decades of investment, coordination, and relationship-forging.

Predicting the near future in global trade is a challenge, to put it lightly. However, the longer-term direction is clear. Projections show cargo volumes doubling or tripling by 2050 compared to 2019. In fact, 2025 volumes already exceeded our port’s master plan forecast by more than 4 percent and sit roughly 16 percent above 2019 levels.

The numbers so far in 2026 are softer, consistent with what forecasters have been saying. It’s not a lull; it’s an opportunity. This moment of breathing room is rare, and we can’t waste it. We’re using our role as landlord and public steward to make the case to terminal operators, warehouses, truckers, and more that right now is the time to get ready for that volume growth without the immediate pressure of peak demand bearing down on every decision.

That preparation is already taking concrete form. Over the last three years, we’ve signed new long-term leases at four of our container terminals, each structured around performance benchmarks rather than simple occupancy. It’s a marked difference that makes priorities like capacity growth and sustainability a shared obligation, so everyone is rowing in the same direction. The long-term timeframes provide certainty that any new investments will pay dividends down the line.

We’re also eager for more conversations about gate hours. Cargo moves around the clock, yet truck access at many U.S. terminals is still largely limited to about 12 hours a day on weekdays — roughly one-third of the hours available in a week. If our forecasted cargo levels become reality, we need to rethink longstanding assumptions to handle all of it smoothly.

We also need to make sure our surrounding infrastructure can keep pace. We’re modernizing the northern roadway entrance to the Newark–Elizabeth terminal complex, including an expanded entry ramp that opened earlier this year. At the same time, we’re growing rail capacity, rehabilitating aging wharves, and advancing plans to deepen and widen federal navigation channels to 55 feet so the newest, biggest ships can serve the port.

The pandemic surge of 2021 and 2022 offered an unplanned preview of what our future volumes will look like. We didn’t choke then, but it was hard to breathe. We need to get ahead of that kind of demand before it returns — and becomes routine.

The right response to uncertainty isn’t to wait it out. We must use the time wisely.

When volumes climb again, and they will, our port will be ready to absorb the blows and come out swinging.