Getting There: Targeting truckers wrong way to address Connecticut traffic woes
From New Haven Register. “Why don’t we just ban all trucks from our interstate highways in rush hour?” A mayor of a small Fairfield County town recently asked me this question. He’s a smart guy who obviously had given a lot of thought to resolving our traffic woes and believed he had the answer to…
From New Haven Register.
“Why don’t we just ban all trucks from our interstate highways in rush hour?”
A mayor of a small Fairfield County town recently asked me this question. He’s a smart guy who obviously had given a lot of thought to resolving our traffic woes and believed he had the answer to the transportation crisis.
He wasn’t in favor of tolls but liked them as a traffic mitigation tool. Charging truck drivers more during rush hour would incentivize them to travel during other times of the day. He was just taking the idea a step further: ban them completely at certain hours.
I told him that’s probably illegal. This is an interstate, federal highway built to carry trucks. It would be a better idea to suggest merchants only accept deliveries at, say, 3 a.m. instead of 9 to 5, which is more convenient for store owners.
But the truck-haters are not satisfied. Any number of candidates are calling for truck-only tolls, pointing to Rhode Island recently launching this type of system. It’s been a huge success, raking in $625,000 in its first month of operation.
But it’s also attracted lawsuits, because it is illegal — just like the mayor’s idea. Tolling only big-rigs is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s “Commerce Clause.” The truckers and big-box stores say it’s not fair to toll them and not charge drivers of cars and small trucks. I’m no lawyer, but I think they’re right.
Trucks are not the problem. Cars are the real issue.
See the full article by Jim Cameron in New Haven Register online.