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Politics & Government

Fixing Truck Strikes May Cost Big Bucks

Solutions are either too costly or require state legislation and insurance cooperation.

The "truck strike force" involving local, county and state authorities as well as commercial trucking companies and insurers is seeking to stop the incidence of events like the 53-foot trailer stuck under the Purchase Street Bridge in January.

That incident was one of many for Rye, the Village of Rye Brook and the county as a whole. And while some improvements can be made, the problem may be impossible to completely fix –without a huge cost.

"It's disruptive, it costs money to the taxpayers and sometimes you have to pay overtime for people to deal with the situation," Village of Rye Brook Mayor Joan Feinstein said. "Especially if you have things coming off the truck."

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For most strikes, local authorities are the first on the scene, and the MTA police are called in. Depending on the site of the strike, county police may also get involved.

"Typically its just a traffic annoyance but there's certainly a danger involved," City of Rye Police Commissioner William Connors said. "We did have a trailer actually roll on its side one night and that could have had catastrophic results if someone had been walking by, so there's certainly a hazard involved."

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The King Street Bridge in Rye Brook, for instance, which is under the jurisdiction of the county, is actually the most struck of any bridge in the state. It has already had three bridge strikes in 2010 and had nine strikes in 2009.

In 2009, the county police – who patrol the Hutchinson River Parkway, Bronx River Parkway, Saw Mill River Parkway and the Cross County Parkway – dealt with 54 bridge strikes, in 2008 they dealt with 46, nearly one bridge strike a week.

"Westchester County Police interview the driver to find out why they chose to take that route, did they ignore signs, were they directed by the GPS were they trying to save time," Village of Rye Brook Police Chief Gregory Austin said.

In a survey of 63 truckers in 2009, 50 who ventured onto Westchester parkways said they were following their GPS.  Sixteen of 22 drivers surveyed who had actually struck a bridge also said they were merely following their GPS and not paying attention to road signs. 

The problem with GPS, however, is that most truck drivers are equipped with consumer GPS systems, which do not account for truck routes.

"GPS seems to be a large, and growing, part of the problem," Kieran O'Leary, Westchester County Police Public Information Officer said. "But the problem of trucks hitting bridges in Westchester goes back a very long way – and long before the advent of GPS."

The problem is two-fold: The bridges are too low and the trucks are driving off of truck routes.

For the latter, the task force is working on improving signs and the governor did propose a law in October 2009 that trucks without commercial GPS units would be in violation. The height issue is incredibly costly to fix.

According to MTA spokesman Dan Brucker, the most efficient construction, in addition to clearer signs, would be to have the road itself take a dip under the tracks to give more clearance, but in such financial times, finding the funding for that seems unlikely.

"I don't know of any incidence where the level of the track was raised, not only would the cost be astronomical, I can't even calculate the cost –train stations nearby [would have] to start rebuilding that entire station," Brucker said. "It is simply not doable and I have never known it to be done."

Instead, local authorities can only continue to improve signs and lobby the state for legislation and insurers for possible incentives to get commercial GPS systems into trucks. 

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