By Kevin Duggan
Automatic enforcement of
overweight trucks could come
to the crumbling Brooklyn-
Queens Expressway thanks
to a state bill that’s poised to
get approval this week.
The legislation sponsored
by state Sen. Brian Kavanagh
and Assemblymember Jo
Anne Simon would allow the
city’s Department of Transportation
to install so-called
weigh-in-motion sensors on
the BQE to fine heavy haulers
causing outsize damage
to the deteriorating highway.
“This legislation is vital to
extending the useful life of
the BQE, and ensuring the
safety of all drivers and passengers
of vehicles that use
this roadway,” said Kavanagh
in a statement Wednesday
after the bill was approved in
both chambers Tuesday.
The lawmakers first put
forth the law in early 2020
after a so-called expert
panel appointed by Mayor
Bill de Blasio to study the
BQE found that overweight
truck traffic was severely
damaging the triple-cantilever
Caribbean L 28 ife, JUNE 11-17, 2021
section of the roadway
wrapping around Brooklyn
Heights, warning that the
roadway could become unsafe
as soon as 2026.
The report found of the
150,000 daily vehicles traversing
the BQE daily prepandemic,
trucks make up
15,000, or 10 percent, along
the busy Robert Moses-era
highway which carries a lot
of freight traffic through
Brooklyn and Queens.
Trucks are limited to a
maximum load of 80,000
pounds as per the American
Association of State Highway
and Transportation Officials,
but the panel found that 11.1
percent of trucks exceeded
that threshold with some
weighing as much as 170,000
— more than double the permitted
weight!
While de Blasio promised
to up police enforcement of
the heavy vehicles after the
report’s release, their existing
tactics were impractical
because they relied on cops
eyeballing trucks for being
overweight, taking them off
the road, and weighing them
with a stationary scale.
If the new bill is signed
into law by Gov. Andrew
Cuomo before the legislative
session ends on June 10, it
will allow the city’s DOT to
set up the WIM sensors along
Interstate-278 in Brooklyn.
They can record both a vehicle’s
overall or gross weight
and the load on each individual
axle, which is important
because the same load can
exert more pressure if less
spread out across a shorter
truck.
The sensors would send
violations to trucks with
weights 10 percent above
the gross load or 20 percent
above axle weight would be
fined after a 90-day grace
period.
The city agency installed
the first such WIM technology
on the Alexander Hamilton
Bridge between the Bronx
and Manhattan in 2014, and
two more in Queens in 2016.
The bill’s language says
that the new enforcement
The state wants to stop overweight trucks going on the BQE
by installing automatic sensors along the highway. Photo by
Meg Capone
mechanism will help
extend the triple cantilever’s
lifespan, along with an
“emergency repair initiative”
DOT is due to unveil in
the coming weeks.
This story first appeared
on AMNY.com.
State pols poised to implement automatic
BQE truck weight enforcement bill
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