The trouble with trucks

State Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri is convinced that the state’s truck route hierarchy makes sense. He told the Princeton Packet that portions of some state highways — such as Route 31 in Ewing or Route 9 in Toms River, — have been excluded

because of dimensional conditions, Commissioner Kolluri said Tuesday. He said roadways identified with hazardous bridge clearances or narrow widths, less than 11 feet, cannot handle the larger vehicles.

“It is not a political calculus whether a road is prohibited or not,” Mr. Kolluri said. “My prediction is at the end of this process there will be less trucks not more on Route 206.”

That seems unlikely. The regulations are written in such a way that truckers will be allowed to claim the route they are using is the shortest distance between destinations, allowing them to get around the restrictions on what are really local roadways.

As I said in my Dispatches column yesterday, Routes 27 and 206 are residential and business thoroughfares that were not designed to handle big rigs. That’s why the people in South Brunswick, Franklin, Princeton and Lawrence are so concerned.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet