Pennsylvania Town Grapples With Influx of Truck Traffic
A 102-inch-wide tractor-trailer belongs in Alburtis, a hillside borough of 2,400 people, narrow streets and no traffic lights, about as much as a tricycle belongs on Interstate 78.
Yet Sharon Trexler couldn't get through a five-minute phone call in mid-March about the tiny burg's big freight problem before another truck drove past Borough Hall.
It's an hourly occurrence, Trexler said, especially since warehouses opened for business at the new Liberty at Spring Creek complex just north of town.
Most of the truck drivers are lost, having missed a turn to one of Lower Macungie Township's many industrial complexes west of Route 100. Others are following misguided navigation systems and don't realize they're entering a bottleneck until it's too late. Once over the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, they struggle to find clearance for rigs that often exceed 50 feet.
"It's horrible," Trexler, the borough manager, said. "Our roads can't handle it."
Houses neither, as it turns out. Earlier in March, a tractor-trailer struck the front porch of a 160-year-old brick home on Main Street while the driver was trying to turn around. He drove off while an Alburtis police officer was citing another tractor-trailer driver.
Alburtis police issued nearly 50 citations in February to drivers of vehicles exceeding the allowed width of 8 feet, said Alburtis Police Chief Robert Palmer — a significant increase from years past. The $404 fine, he said, hasn't yet worked as a deterrent.
"It's getting really out of hand," Palmer said. "Some of the things these drivers do are scary."
Alburtis and Lower Macungie officials on March 17 met with officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, state police, state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie and warehouse landlord Liberty Property Trust to figure out how to keep tractor-trailers on the appropriate roads.
The Liberty at Spring Creek complex is by no means the only one causing the problem, Trexler said. In fact, the Alburtis-area freight issues embody regional challenges that have emerged with the booming logistics and e-commerce industries.
Does the Lehigh Valley have too many warehouses? https://t.co/ciTvbhCsRf — The Morning Call (@mcall) March 21, 2017
All parties say it's a challenging problem to solve. There's no shortage of regulations in place that are supposed to keep truckers on the straight and wide. The National Truck Network designates the specific roads on which 102-inch-wide trucks are allowed, and PennDOT allows travel up to one mile off the network for access to terminals and "facilities for food, fuel, rest or repair."
Liberty already had committed to installing a sign on Congdon Hill Drive — the Spring Creek industrial complex's private accessway — warning drivers not to turn right toward Alburtis. And Michael Alderman, a company vice president, said it took steps in mid-March to expedite sign installation.
"As a landlord, we have limited control over our tenants' vehicles, but we always work to help facilitate good practices by our tenants in order to improve the community's experience," he said March 17.
Because Congdon Hill Drive does not yet register on navigation systems like Google Maps, officials have asked PennDOT to consider installing signs on Spring Creek Road alerting trucks that they must turn into the warehouse complex.
Lower Macungie officials also have asked PennDOT to add restriction signage at the intersection of Spring Creek and Mertztown roads, just north of the warehouses. Tractor-trailers more than 28.5 feet long or 8 feet wide are not supposed to be on Mertztown Road, but it has become a "regular thoroughfare" for tractor-trailers trying to access the new warehouses, residents claimed in a petition sent to Lower Macungie officials earlier in March. The trucks, they say, pose a hazard to their properties.
"We are trying to do a combination of positive and prohibitionary signage," Mackenzie, a Republican, said after the March 17 meeting. "Beyond that, we need developers and tenants to educate drivers on the proper routes."
Two warehouses at the Spring Creek complex are fully operational, and a third is in construction but not yet occupied, Alderman said. Six total warehouses are planned for the 409-acre site.
Drivers who work directly for warehouse tenants usually take the appropriate route to and from the site because they drive the route routinely and are easily held accountable if they stray, Alderman said.
Third-party "common carriers" who are unfamiliar with the area and are doing one-time trips are more likely to disregard the rules or make mistakes — especially when an access road doesn't yet show up properly on a GPS device.
Alburtis police officer Chris Lubenetski was busy March 10 writing up one tractor-trailer driver when another big rig wandered up Main Street.
Lubenetski waved down the second driver and told him to stay put while he finished with the first guy, Palmer said. Instead, the driver continued up the street and tried to execute a K-turn at Stone Alley — next to Chris and Amy Dawson's home.
Chris Dawson heard a loud bang and then felt the home begin to shake. He ran to the front door, where the family Rottweiler, Jackson, was freaking out about the trailer against the front porch.
The trucker "floored it" down Main Street before Dawson or Lubenetski could get a photo of the license plate, Dawson said. The trailer, Dawson claims, was airborne as it barreled over the railroad tracks past Alburtis Tavern.
The Dawsons have serious structural damage to their home and a $1,000 insurance deductible they'll have to pay if police can't track down the driver. Dawson said he can stick a finger in one of many cracks that have opened around window frames on both floors. The front door no longer opens correctly, and a porch lag bolt got pulled nearly a half-foot out of the wall.
"It's like the whole front of the house got shifted," he said. "We're left feeling kind of helpless."
Officials do, too. Many drivers are simply ignorant of the national network and even less aware of state vehicle regulations, PennDOT District Traffic Engineer Dennis Toomey told Upper Macungie Township's Good Neighbor Coalition at a recent meeting. Making matters worse, many can't read or comprehend the restriction signs, he said.
"What I don't want to do is go down a slippery slope where I'm putting these signs up on every road that isn't supposed to have [102-inch-wide trucks] on them," he said at the meeting. "Signs are a low-cost attempt at addressing this type of stuff, but you can't get saturated with signs."
Pennsylvania, unlike other states, does not have official truck route signage. And though there are commercial navigation systems designed for truck drivers, most still use Google Maps, several officials said.
Liberty has provided PennDOT's Geographic Information System Department with the correct road layout, Alderman said, and Mackenzie promised to contact Google about updating its navigation system and adding a freight-specific route option.
"You've got a walking route, a cycling route, an Uber route and a public transportation route," he said. "Why not a truck route option?"
Developer David Jaindl, who sold the land to Liberty, will build an extension of Sauerkraut Lane from Route 100 to Congdon Hill Drive when the number of daily truck trips in and out of the new complex justifies it. East Penn School District will pay $1.7 million toward the road construction.
Ron Beitler, a Lower Macungie commissioner who attended the March 17 meeting, said state police agreed to conduct a "targeted truck enforcement blitz" in April to send a message. But he emphasized that the ultimate solution is something that no regional community has tried yet.
Beitler thinks fines should be levied on the local operators to which the drivers are delivering, he wrote on his blog March 18. The state Legislature, he said, also should enable municipalities to assess impact fees to warehouse landlords to cover the external costs freight has on the community.
"We need the ability to create ordinances that hold businesses accountable," he wrote. "Common sense dictates ... they are in the best position to proactively address issues before they become problems."
Municipal officials said Liberty representatives have been receptive to their concerns and eager to find a solution.
"I live here, too," Alderman said. "We don't want people upset with the consequences of property we own. We can't control what happens minute by minute, but we are trying to be part of the solution."
Dawson, a former truck driver himself, understands that mistakes happen. But how, he wonders, does a driver end up in a borough that doesn't have a single traffic light?
"It was a nice, quiet place when we moved here, and it still is, but it's completely changed by the truck traffic," he said. "They have no business being up here."
