A truck route network through Rockland will be created over the coming years in an attempt to get trucks off local roads, county transportation and planning officials said last night. State highways, such as routes 59, 304 and 45, would be part of the proposed network, along with county highways, such as Orangeburg Road in Orangetown and Red Schoolhouse Road in Ramapo.“There are no designated truck routes in this county,” county Superintendent of Highways Charles “Skip” Vezzetti said. “Those truckers come up here now, and they don’t know where to go.”
The truck route was one of the recommendations stemming from a yearlong study on truck movement in the county. Its finding and strategies were released at a public information meeting last night at the Rockland County Fire Training Center in Ramapo. About 45 people attended.
The study’s primary goal, the consultants hired to do the study said last night, was to create safer roads for all drivers by keeping trucks away from homes, schools and parks whenever possible.
The study also identified five “hot spots” – locations where significant problems exist due to heavy truck traffic. They were Western Highway, south of Route 59 from Clarkstown into Orangetown; New Hempstead Road in Ramapo and Clarkstown; Main Street-Grassy Point Road in Stony Point; Thiells-Mount Ivy Road in Haverstraw; and Middletown Road in Pearl River and Nanuet.
Over the next 10 years, the study calls for the county to develop a uniform network of truck route signs, explaining where they are, how to get to them and restrictions on nearby roads. At the same time, it calls for working with local towns and villages, and neighboring municipalities, to make sure routes are feasible. And finally, several road improvements, such as redesigning the Route 9W and Short Clove Road intersection in Haverstraw, will also make it easier for trucks to stay off of smaller local roads.
Nearly half of the people who attended identified themselves as residents along Western Highway in Blauvelt or West Nyack. They wondered aloud how this proposed truck route would keep tractor-trailers out of their neighborhoods.
Western Highway would not be part of the route, Vezzetti said, and providing truck drivers with better information might keep many of them off that narrow road.
The study also found that two-thirds of the trucks using local roads, as opposed to the state Thruway, were two-axle box trucks. Nearly 60 percent were delivering items, providing a service or were related to construction.
Almost half of the trucks, 48 percent, began and ended their trips in Rockland, followed by 25 percent that came from outside of the county.
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4 Responses
COULD I KEEP A TRUCK IN MY BACK YARD?
JUST TO BAKE BREAD OR CAKE.
bY THE WAY ITS RT 306 NOT 304
lipa- there is a route 304 past the nanuet mall – before the PIP – it leads out to New City and beyond in one direction and to Pearl River and beyond in the other direction.
let us pray it is not rt 306 which runs thru downtown Monsey. from the state line all the way to route 202. this route is already heavily congested with cars any further designations as a truck route would create a grid lock effect on the area
Torahtotty – 304 as you know is a wider and faster moving road than 306. it is more central (in the county) than 306. I would be very surprised if they meant 306 which is 1 lane in each direction the entire length of the road. but if they did mean 306……….. you would have to leave on Thursday to go downrown shopping and get home by licht bentching on Friday.