BY PATRICIA A. MILLER
Staff Writer
Drivers in Middlesex County are more likely to be killed by a truck than anything else in the state, a trend predicted to continue over the next few decades.
That’s just one of the ominous conclusions reached by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a nonprofit transportation watchdog group that evaluated truck traffic throughout New Jersey in a recent report.
“Highest truck deaths” is stamped across the Middlesex County fact sheet from the Tri-State report titled “The Trucks Are Coming — What Growing Truck Traffic Will Mean for New Jersey’s Quality of Life.”
The number of tractor-trailers and trucks thundering down New Jersey highways will soar more than 80 percent by 2020, according to the report.
“New Jersey’s traffic congestion is slated to worsen considerably in the next two decades, with traffic growing exponentially, by more than eight times its current level,” the report found.
Middlesex County will also have the dubious distinction of having the highest heavy truck volume in the state by then, according to the report.
“Some counties will fare worse than others,” said Michelle Ernst, Tri-State’s staff analyst and the author of the report.
Middlesex County ranked first in the state with 13 truck-related fatalities in 2003. Tri-State predicts that number will rise to 21 deaths by 2020.
Overall daily truck traffic in 1998 through the county was 1,181,905 vehicle miles traveled (VMT). That number will jump to 2,168,776 by 2020, an 84-percent increase, according to the report.
What is it about Middlesex County that makes it No. 1 on the list?
“All that traffic generated around [New Jersey Turnpike] Exit 8A,” said Damien Newton, Tri-State’s New Jersey coordinator. “There’s a lot of warehouses, storehouses and changeover facilities.”
The group is promoting the need for more rail freight, Newton said.
“You are never really going to be able to stop truck growth, but that’s one way you can slow the growth down,” she said.
Although many other states also have freight moved primarily by trucks, New Jersey is more densely packed than other states, Newton said.
“New Jersey is sort of a hub for the region, with Port of Newark and Port of New York, a lot of states don’t have that,” she said.
Middlesex County Planner George M. Ververides is not surprised by the statistics.
“I don’t think truck traffic in Middlesex County is ever going to be reduced,” he said. “We are in the middle of one of the largest consumer markets on the East Coast.”
Goods are trucked from Port Elizabeth and Port Newark down the New Jersey Turnpike to warehouse areas in the county, Ververides said.
“These goods have to be distributed,” he said. “I don’t know how we will ever reduce that aspect of it. Being a very densely populated county, most of the existing rail lines go through areas very close to residential development. That’s where you have a huge reaction by the public.”
There is roughly a million square feet of warehouse space around Exit 8A and plans in the works for millions more, he said.
Middlesex County is prone to warehouse development because of its proximity to highways, he said.
“We’re hoping and trying to encourage that warehouse areas be located near the major interstates to tie in with the expansion of Port Newark and Port Elizabeth,” Ververedes said. “Because of the warehousing, we’re somewhat becoming an inland port. The goods are coming out of port facilities and coming down to our area, and from there distributed to the markets.”
The steadily increasing truck traffic will spawn other problems, including more traffic delays, degradation of roads and bridges and worsening air quality, the report predicts.
So what advice does Tri-State have for Middlesex County commuters?
“Tell them to support railroad projects,” Newton said.
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign is an alliance of public interest, transit advocacy, planing and environmental organizations formed to fight automobile dependence and sprawl development in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut metropolitan region.