Changing U.S. truck weight law uphill fight

BANGOR – The death of a local woman May 3 under a rear wheel of a tractor-trailer on State Street may have filled a group of Mainers visiting the nation’s capital this week with a greater sense of urgency for their mission, but don’t expect immediate results, officials on the trip said Tuesday.

About two dozen state and business leaders traveled to Washington on Tuesday to talk with federal officials about the federally imposed 80,000-pound weight limit on Maine’s highways. The limit forces heavy trucks to go through the center of small towns and keeps open the likelihood that Lena Gray will not be the last Maine pedestrian crushed to death by a truck that is prohibited from traveling on the interstate, according to members of the trip.

“No one should expect us to come home with 100,000 pounds in our pocket,” Maine Department of Transportation Commissioner David Cole said Tuesday of the desired weight limit. “I don’t want to imply that this will be easy. It’s a difficult issue.”

The trip had been planned before the accident that killed Gray, 80, as she returned home from a shopping trip. The tanker truck, which was hauling gasoline from Hampden to Presque Isle, weighed in at just under 100,000 pounds – a weight that kept it off Interstate 95 and forced it to wind its way through central Bangor as it made its trip north.

The weight-limit issue not only poses safety concerns, Cole said, it also has an adverse economic impact on Maine. Keeping the weight limit at 80,000 pounds forces more trucks onto Maine roads and raises transportation costs for firms that do business in the state.

“It’s not economical, it’s not practical, it’s not safe,” Cole said of the 80,000-pound limit.

Though Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont also have 80,000-pound weight limits on their highways, their economies are not as reliant on natural resources and heavy transportation as Maine’s economy is, according to Cole. Maine otherwise is surrounded by states and Canadian provinces with higher weight limits, and mostly with similar economies, which puts Maine at an economic disadvantage.

Dale Hanington, president and CEO of Maine Motor Transportation, said that he, Cole and others traveled to Washington to combat the prevailing perception in Congress that lighter weight limits are safer. Maine’s congressional delegation is united in supporting a higher weight limit, but national safety groups seem to have most federal officials convinced otherwise, he said. Some national safety advocates argue that not only is a lighter limit safer, but that there should be a national 80,000- pound limit.

“There couldn’t be anything further from the truth,” Hanington said.

Gray’s death may be drawing more attention to the issue, he said, but he declined to make a prediction about the mission’s success.

“I’ve been working on this issue for 20 years,” Hanington said.

Mission member and Bangor Mayor John Cashwell said the group also is meeting with staff members of Senate and House subcommittees that regulate highway weight limits in order to make their voices heard, but also to get a better sense of the legislative process. Cashwell said the subcommittee staffers were not enthusiastic about the political prospects for getting the limit raised.

“They never think that lighter means more trucks,” Cashwell said. “That puts us at a commercial handicap for doing business.”

Cole said state transportation officials tell their federal counterparts every year that the 80,000-pound weight limit on Interstates 95, 295 and 395 is one of the top transportation issues in Maine. He said members of the group plan to observe a hearing today of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, on which Rep. Michael Michaud serves, before they return to Maine this afternoon.

The key to getting the state’s weight limit eventually raised, Cole suggested, is to demonstrate that a significant majority of Maine residents believes it makes sense.

“We feel there’s a compelling case for Maine,” he said. “It’s rare to see this level of consensus in a public debate.”