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Searching for Parking * USA - Rigs Keep on Trucking
On any given night, the shoulders of interstates leading into big cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore are lined with long glistening strands of parked 18-wheelersAkron,PA,USA -Layover/Associated Press -1 May 2007: -- These are the trucks that couldn't get a space in nearby rest stops or truck stops because those roadsides oases are already packed with resting big rigs... Thanks to a strong economy, more trucks than ever are moving on the nation's roads, transporting goods. But the number of places where truckers can stop and get some shut-eye during long hauls isn't expanding as fast... New Jersey, voted by the trucking industry as the nation's worst state in terms of rest stops, has only five public rest stops with bathrooms on its interstates and main state roads (not counting toll roads). In Connecticut alone, there's a shortage of 2,200 public spaces for trucks each night, says the state's transportation department... Building more parking spots isn't an easy or likely solution, says Christopher Burruss, president of the Truckload Carriers Association, a Washington advocacy group which represents companies using trucks to move freight. For one thing, land that is close to highways or major cities, where truckers prefer to stop, tends to be expensive, and parking lots eat up a lot of land... Some cities and towns don't like the idea of a steady stream of mammoth vehicles rumbling through their neighborhoods. Communities along California's Interstate 5 have passed legislation that essentially prohibits the opening of any new truck stops along the side of the road... Currently, there are about 1,000 truck stops spread across the country... Truckers caught parking illegally along the highway are generally hit with parking fines. Such fines don't add up to a great deal of money for states, which often leave it up to the discretion of police whether to ticket the driver or to just ask him to find a safer place to park for the night... That was a dilemma that plagued Maryland state trooper and department spokesman Arthur Betts when he patrolled the rest stops along I-95 between Washington and Baltimore during a recent stint. He says he could have spent his entire shift ticketing truckers for illegal parking, if time allowed...
Labels: infra...structures?..
posted by Unknown @ 10:34 AM
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