Extra-long trucks with double trailers could soon be riding on local roads like Sound Avenue, Northville Turnpike and Route 58, thanks to a proposed federal transportation bill.
The bill, which has already made it through the House and is being considered by the Senate, would allow multi-trailer trucks up to 84 feet long on roads in the federal national highway system network.
New York State currently bans trucks more than 65 feet long on its roads, but the proposed federal bill would override state law, allowing trucks more than 80 feet long to ride on state highways across the country.
That’s about the size of an eight-story building turned on its side, according to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who announced today he will do everything in his power to block the provision.
The double tractor-trailers would be allowed to travel on National Highway System roads, which include a route through Riverhead. Tandem tractor-trailers up to 84 feet long would travel from the Long Island Expressway to Route 58, where they would turn left onto Northville Turnpike and head toward Sound Avenue.
The trucks would then make a right-hand turn from Northville Turnpike onto Sound Avenue and head east until Sound Avenue becomes Route 48 and eventually turns into Route 25. The national highway system route continues east all the way to Orient Point.
“We have older roads here, and a lot of them aren’t built to handle that kind of traffic, the weight and size of the truck,” Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski said tonight. “As much as I like Queens, we don’t want to let our towns turn into Queens. If we have to address this at the county level I’m sure we’ll have a lot of support to limit the size of the trucks.”
Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell said the town has opposed this measure and “will fight it with any means available.”
East Marion Community Association vice president Anne Murray said the tandem trailers “would be very dangerous.”
“In the summer you are already taking your life in your hands” on local roads, Murray said.
“We are extremely concerned about any additional truck traffic on Route 25,” Orient Association president Bob Hanlon said. “It’s a rural road in an agricultural area lined with historic homes, not suitable to heavy truck traffic and any increase would be extremely detrimental to the quality of life of residents of Orient and the entire town of Southold. As we’ve indicated in the past we will strongly oppose any efforts to increase truck traffic on Route 25,” he said.
The proposed federal bill would permit twin 33-foot trucks on the National Highway System (see map), increased from the 28-foot trailers currently allowed. Combined with the length of the truck’s cab and the section connecting the two trailers, double trucks under the new law could be 84 feet long.
“The fact of the matter is, these longer, double-hitched tractor-trailers are a tremendous road safety risk to people and infrastructure alike,” Schumer said in his announcement today.
He pointed out that larger trucks require larger stopping distances of about 20 additional feet, and that longer trailers make merging and passing “very difficult” for other drivers on the road.
The larger trucks permitted by the proposed federal bill would increase the turning radius for trucks even further – by an additional six feet, according to Schumer.
Multi-trailer trucks are also more deadly: A study by the U.S. Department of Transportation found that multi-trailer trucks had an 11 percent higher fatal crash rate than single-trailer trucks.
Truck traffic on the North Fork has been a topic of heated debate recently. Just a few months ago, local residents successfully fought a regional proposal that called for diverting some 3,000 tractor-trailers per year from Connecticut highways to Long Island via the Orient Point ferry. That plan was eventually scrapped by the N.Y. Metropolitan Transportation Council.
