Shipping containers are arrayed in large stacks visible from the New Jersey Turnpike before being loaded onto rail cars and trucks.

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 215 feet (66 m) over the water, at a cost of around $1.7 billion.

Other improvements are expected to cost additional billions of dollars, including larger cranes, bigger railyard facilities, deeper channels, and expanded wharves.

The auto-processing facilities at the north end of Port Newark and the adjacent Doremus Ave. Auto Terminal are served by dockside trackage.

[7][8] Work on the channel and terminal facilities on its north side accelerated during World War I, when the federal government took control of Port Newark.

In 1958, the port authority dredged another shipping channel, which straightened the course of Bound Brook, the tidal inlet forming the boundary between Newark and Elizabeth.

[14][15] In 2000, a Congressional study deemed the port and other transportation, communications, oil, and chemical facilities along a 2 miles (3.2 km) stretch of New Jersey "the nation's most enticing environment for terrorists", according to a 2005 New York Times article.

[17][18] Various planned steps to accommodate this growth include deepening the Kill van Kull, raising the Bayonne Bridge, and expanding rail freight facilities.