Trucks Said To Plague City
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Whether in the middle of the night or at midday, trucks come barreling down the city’s streets, noisy and overladen, spewing noxious clouds. It happens everywhere, but especially in downtown Brooklyn and in Flushing, Queens, traffic relief advocates say.
“Everywhere I go in the city, everybody agrees that there are too many,” the New York City coordinator for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Teresa Toro, said about the number of trucks on city streets.
By 2020, the Federal Highway Administration estimates there will be 50% more freight trucks passing through New York than today, she said. Ms. Toro’s group is one of several, including city council members, community boards, and neighborhood associations, taking the city’s Department of Transportation to task on its progress in dealing with the city’s truck traffic.
The department last week released a preliminary list of recommendations to lessen the impact of trucks on local communities. The department proposed enhancing signs directing truck drivers through the city, establishing a new office to focus on the issues of freight transportation, and making route changes to reduce congestion on residential streets, among other changes. A full report detailing the impact on communities and recommended solutions will be completed soon, the department said.
Ms. Toro said truck traffic is an “emerging crisis,” with repercussions on public health as well as the city’s economy and infrastructure. She said the department’s lack of speed in responding to the problems stems from an overemphasis on traffic engineering and a deficit of study of the human costs of transit.
The council’s Transportation Committee, headed by Council Member John Liu, is conducting a hearing tomorrow at 10 a.m. to determine the department’s progress in dealing with the problem. Mr. Liu said the department’s promise to make an impact on truck traffic is long overdue. The department had said it would have results by the end of 2005, he said.
“There are mounting complaints from our constituents,” Mr. Liu said.
