In 1994, the
New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) purchased the Arthur Kill Railroad Lift Bridge and the North Shore branch from
CSX. In December 2004, NYCEDC and the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced a $72 million project to rehabilitate the bridge and reactivate freight rail service on
Staten Island. Repairs included repainting the steel and rehabilitating the lift mechanism. The bridge was painted
royal blue in an homage to the B&O. The rehabilitation project was completed in June 2006. On October 4, 2006, a train crossed the bridge for the first time in 16 years. It was a single locomotive which took on switching duties at the
New York Container Terminal, also known by its old name, Howland Hook. On April 2, 2007, normal operations involving garbage removal from the
Staten Island Transfer Station started, which would result in an estimated 90,000 annual truck loads diverted from the nearby
Goethals Bridge. On October 4, 2007, New York Container Terminal, which operates Howland Hook, announced the opening of on-dock rail service called
ExpressRail via the bridge, with regular service by
Conrail (CRCX), CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads. In 2013,
Reworld signed a contract with the New York City Sanitation Department to barge containers of solid waste from transfer stations in Queens and Manhattan to New York Container Terminal where they will be transferred to rail cars for shipment to Covanta
waste to energy plants. As of 2018, U.S. Coast Guard regulations limit lowering the bridge to two 15-minute periods per day, with advance warning and restrictions on lowering during high tide. Conrail, which services Staten Island with one train a day, has stated that they do not see this limitation affecting current rail traffic levels, but it could become a problem if traffic increases significantly ==Image gallery==