[Vince Ferrer]

All that money spent to raise the bridge. Here is the reason.

And the reason why they widened the Panama Canal.

...CGM, the ship made its way to New Jersey after navigating the new Panama Canal locks Aug. 22 and becoming the largest capacity ship to do so. 

[Paladin2]

Looks like they raised the deck on the bridge w/o having to do much on the base structure.

[Alberta's Child]

What's interesting is that every economic forecast and operating plan I've seen for the Port of NY/NJ has indicated that they expect very little change in vessel activity there as a result of the widening of the Panama Canal.

The issue is that New York City is so far north and east on the Atlantic seaboard. If you are a shipping line and you want to deliver 10,000 containers from Asia to the Port of New York, sailing through the Panama Canal would take much longer than either of these options:

1. Sail westbound from Asia through the Suez Canal, then through the Mediterranean Sea and across the Atlantic.

2. Sail eastbound from Asia and drop the containers off at the Port of LA/Long Beach, where they'll be loaded onto intermodal trains and carried across the U.S.