The DOT will put the deal up for public comment in the near future.
By: Linda Seida
Big rigs can keep on trucking on Route 31, Route 179 and other local roads now that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to get involved in New Jersey’s failed legal effort to restrict large trucks to interstate highways.
However, state and local officials haven’t given up on reaching a compromise with the trucking industry.
"We’re actually working on a constitutional way to make deliveries, then get them back to the national network," Lambertville Mayor Del Vecchio said Friday of the big rigs. "The trucking industry is at the table with us, formulating it."
Mayor Del Vecchio, chairman of the New Jersey League of Municipalities’ Heavy Truck Traffic Task Force, said he was "optimistic we’ll be able to come up with a system and announce a rule that is constitutional."
In a letter sent to more than 560 mayors in the state, the league’s executive director, William G. Dressel Jr., said the compromise should be available by the state Department of Transportation for public comment in the near future.
"We are very disappointed in this ruling, but it was not unexpected," Mr. Dressel wrote. "The league’s Heavy Truck Task Force is continuing to work with the DOT and other interested parties on the proposed regulations, which the DOT hopes to issue within the next 45 days for public comment."
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case Oct. 2 dashed the state’s attempt to confine the large trucks mostly to interstate highways and the New Jersey Turnpike.
Locally, the roads affected include routes 179 and 31.
Route 29 is not affected because it is protected from large truck traffic by a separate state ban that remains in place, according to Mayor Del Vecchio.
The ban on large truck traffic on Route 19 was a direct result of a fatal accident that occurred in 2000. A heavy truck struck a video store, killing the woman who was working inside. It is separate from the ban that governs routes 179 and 31.
The state’s attempt to ban large trucks from local roads goes back to 1999 when DOT regulations were put in place saying 102-inch wide trucks and double tractor-trailers could not use secondary and rural roads unless their routes originated in New Jersey or contained a destination within the state.
A trucking industry challenge of the DOT’s regulations succeeded in 2004, when the U.S. District Court ruled the ban was unconstitutional. The federal court agreed with the trucking industry’s argument that the regulations discriminated against out-of-state truckers and restricted commerce.

