Brooklyn Boro

OPINION: To solve truck woes, infrastructure upgrades are a must

August 17, 2017 By Raanan Geberer Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Trucks on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights. Eagle file photo by Don Evans
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The late Leslie Lewis, longtime president of the 84th Precinct Community Council, which represents Brooklyn Heights, Downtown, DUMBO and Boerum Hill, was a fervent foe of truck drivers who violated regulations while driving through the area.

I remember him at precinct council meetings, talking animatedly about truckers exceeding the speed limit on Atlantic Avenue, which is a designated “through truck route” but still goes through residential areas. Sometimes, he would get NYPD’s Truck Enforcement Unit to visit the area unannounced and issue summonses, but the unit, of course, didn’t have the resources to visit every day. The size of these trucks was also an issue for Lewis — he pointed out that he saw some trucks on the streets that are larger than the city normally allows.

Based on recent interviews, it seems like some things haven’t changed that much since Lewis’ day. One co-worker from Bay Ridge, for example, said that many trucks that are supposed to use 65th Street or other truck routes often detour through smaller streets, causing congestion and potholes and sometimes speeding. “They just factor tickets [for violating the city’s truck rules] into the cost of doing business,” he claimed.

While the city does what it can to mitigate a difficult problem, many of the borough’s narrow streets were built in an era where today’s huge trucks and buses couldn’t even be imagined. Nowadays, pedestrians and local drivers often have to be constantly on the alert for trucks, tour buses, cars used by ride-booking services and other commercial vehicles.

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This is not to say that the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) doesn’t try to deal with these problems. DOT publishes a readily available map of truck routes, which are divided into “through truck routes,” on which any truck can go, and “local truck routes,” which are restricted to trucks with nearby deliveries.

A driver can get off a local truck route for a delivery to a store, say, a few blocks away, but then has to return to it. If stopped by NYPD on a local street, the driver must show a bill of lading proving they are on their way to a delivery or getting back to the truck route.

Some major truck routes in Brooklyn include Flatbush Avenue south of Church Avenue, the Gowanus Expressway and Atlantic Avenue. Some of the borough’s many local truck routes include Empire Boulevard, Avenue U, Coney Island Avenue and 65th Street. A DOT representative says truck route maps are distributed at rest stops on the I-95 corridor. “We do not currently have regular outreach to out-of-state companies, but we plan to scale up our out-of-town outreach in the coming months,” the spokesperson adds.

Leaders active in several Brooklyn communities, however, still have substantial complaints about trucks in their communities.

For example, Peter Bray, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, pointed to “semi-trailers trying to navigate our narrow streets and getting wedged in by parked cars [some of which are themselves illegally parked] … In trying to extricate themselves, the trucks damage bluestone sidewalks, knock over street signs and run into other sidewalk obstructions.”

Bray also criticized delivery trucks that park illegally, sometimes in restricted fire zones, and trucks’ use of narrow Joralemon Street in particular. As far as other commercial vehicles are concerned, Bray said he hasn’t heard complaints about taxis, “but in my experience, car-for-hire drivers routinely break traffic laws, particularly running lights after they have turned red, changing lanes erratically, stopping abruptly in the middle of travel lanes, etc.”

Jeremy Laufer, district manager of Brooklyn Community Board 7, said the fact that his district contains a large industrial area gives rise to problems. Because there are no on-ramps to the Gowanus Expressway in most of the area, he says, trucks that have gotten off to make deliveries or pick up goods must travel north or south through local streets until they can rejoin the expressway, which is a major truck route.

Trucks create harmful emissions, he says, and some trucks that travel through the area are larger than are allowed in the city. In some cases, says Laufer, houses actually shake because of the impact of large trucks.

“Many of the schools here are on truck routes, making it dangerous for kids, dangerous for all pedestrians,” he says. “Many routes are streets that were designed designed for smaller trucks.”  

The board has asked DOT to do a study of local truck routes, said Laufer, and it’s due at the end of the summer. He also called for more enforcement. As a long-term solution, he supports making investments in the city’s infrastructure that would decrease the need for additional large trucks — such as the long-discussed Cross-Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel, which would connect the LIRR’s Bay Ridge freight line to the nation’s freight rail network.

Josephine Beckmann, the district manager of Community Board 10, representing Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, says truck drivers often use streets they’re not allowed to use.

For example, Seventh Avenue south of 65th Street is a local truck route. But “if traffic backs up on Seventh, the trucks try to detour to Sixth to get to the Verrazano Bridge or the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway,” she says. As the DOT spokesperson told this newspaper, “Trucks are not allowed to go off route to take a shortcut or avoid traffic.”

Beckman added that there have been complaints about trucks on 65th Street, another local truck route, making U-turns or turning at a high rate of speed. “The 68th Precinct is doing a good job of issuing summonses,” she says, “but they can’t be doing this all the time.”

As for buses and cabs, she says, the issues mainly involve parking. “They’re allowed to park overnight in certain places,” she says, “but some people don’t like it.”

I would say that in the short-term, more enforcement, getting more information out to trucking companies and having good communications between local governmental bodies and DOT are all important and effective. But in the long run, improved infrastructure solutions — such as rebuilding the Gowanus Expressway to current standards and constructing the long-overdue Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel to get more trucks off the road — are a must.

 


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