Big rig opposition widespread
By: Courtney Gross
To the Princeton Borough Council, and many other municipalities along Route 206, it’s not a matter of how long they have been a part of the state’s trucking network accommodating 102-inch wide and double-trailer trucks, but that they are still there.
Revisiting, once again, trucking regulations proposed by the state Department of Transportation, the Princeton Borough Council reviewed a final response to the inclusion of Routes 206 and 27, as well as Washington Road and Mercer Street, in the New Jersey Access Network.
Questioning the criteria used to include or exclude certain corridors, the council discussed a letter addressed to DOT officials and drafted by Borough Attorney Karen Cayci at its meeting Tuesday. The letter seeks answers from the state on why certain roads were included in the state’s proposed trucking network and others were not.
"We do have some legal legitimate concerns we do want addressed," Princeton Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman said Tuesday.
The most recent move by the governing body is the latest in what has become widespread opposition, spanning a large portion of the Route 206 corridor, against the inclusion of the state roadway in a proposed tiered trucking network.
The breadth of opposition was evident at a meeting held in Hillsborough this week attended by state officials and representatives of Hillsborough, Bedminster, Bridgewater, Far Hills, Lawrence, Millstone, Montgomery, Princeton Borough, Princeton Township, Raritan, Rocky Hill, Somerville and Warren.
The hearing which was an attempt to clarify the issue left some Princeton officials with more questions than answers.
Princeton Borough Councilwoman Wendy Benchley, who attended the Hillsborough meeting, said, "I certainly came away feeling that they’re not inclined to change this."
Borough officials attempted to detail some of the outstanding concerns in the additional letter to the department, which will most likely be revised and approved at Tuesday’s council meeting just before the comment deadline on Feb. 16.
Also on Tuesday, DOT Commissioner Kris Kolluri and representatives from Congressman Rush Holt’s (D-12) office will host a public hearing at Rider University’s Bart Luedeke Theatre from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. to discuss the regulations.
The proposed guidelines, currently on the New Jersey Register, are in response to a federal court decision last year, which found the state’s 1999 trucking restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution by prohibiting interstate commerce.
The former rules restricted large trucks from using the statewide trucking network, which includes Routes 206 and 27, if they did not have a destination or origin in New Jersey. The former rules also did not prohibit intrastate trucks.
The proposed regulations establish a trucking network hierarchy, intending to keep the large trucks on the national network, which includes the state’s interstate highways, while also allowing the vehicles to use the state network, a series of state and county roads, when en route to a delivery location.
Part of the regulations, which apply only to trucks 102-inches wide and those with double trailers, allow these large trucks to continue on the state network if it provides the most direct route to the next delivery point in order to provide "reasonable access to terminals" language Princeton officials contend provides loopholes.
The borough’s letter outlines more than a dozen questions to DOT, such as whether the department considered the dimensions of certain turning radiuses on Routes 206 and 27, which were included in the statewide trucking network in the late 1980s, to what specific criteria was used to exclude sections of roads, like Route 31 in Ewing, and include others.
"From my perspective," Borough Councilman David Goldfarb said Tuesday, "Route 27 has a lot of characteristics of roads that were excluded."
According to the new regulations, roads are exempted from the access network based on myriad of factors, such as sight distance at intersections, traffic volumes, roadway geometrics, roadside development or environment, accident records, the use of the route by other trucks to date and alternate routings.
Despite these factors, Princeton officials who are currently drafting an exemption request for all of Princeton’s roadways included in the statewide trucking network define the department’s exclusion process as arbitrary and inconsistent.
Commissioner Kolluri said he has met with both Princeton Township and Princeton Borough officials, but has not received any exemption requests in writing. Still, he added, the department intends on working with all municipalities.
"We have committed to work with them to address what their issues are and to clarify any misinformation out there," the commissioner said. "No rule is ever static. No rule is hermetically sealed."
Princeton officials have also recently raised alarm over the inclusion of Washington Road and Mercer Street, labeled Routes 571 and 583 respectively on the state’s proposed trucking map, of which the latter has a four-ton weight limit.
The commissioner said truck drivers couldn’t ignore municipal restrictions in lieu of the proposed trucking regulations.
As Princeton officials continue to point towards the large student population across Nassau Street, Princeton University officials said Thursday that it appreciates DOT’s review of the municipalities’ safety concerns regarding the proposed trucking regulations.

