Houston is closer to adopting a citywide truck route plan, which could affect how some truckers haul goods through the city.
According to a Nov. 9 city document, the fourth-largest city in the U.S. could restrict where truckers go within its limits. With freight tonnage estimated to increase 60% between 2015 and 2040, the new plan would aim to improve multi-modal safety, improve quality of life, maintain infrastructure in a state of good repair, enhance efficiency and promote economic vitality.
The truck route plan would apply to all commercial vehicles with three or more axles or trucks weighing more than 26,000 pounds.
It also would apply to any vehicle carrying placarded amounts of hazardous materials or solid waste.
The planned truck routes are broken down into three categories:
- Through-truck routes: Primary routes to be used by commercial vehicles to travel within, to, from and through Houston. To be used by commercial vehicles that have neither a local origin nor destination. These include interstate highways, state highways, toll roads, critical urban freight corridors and roadways that are functional and suitable for truck traffic.
- Local-truck routes: Major thoroughfares providing connection from through-truck routes to local origins and destinations directly or via access to other streets. These also would serve as alternate routes in the event of through-truck-route closure for construction or emergency reasons.
- No-through streets: A road segment where through-truck traffic is prohibited that could be used only to access local origins and destinations.
Regarding the “no-through streets” category, local origins and destinations would include pickup or delivery of goods, wares, merchandise, construction materials or solid waste from or to any property located on a roadway within the city. The category also would allow driving to and from a Houston driver’s residence or the property of the motor carrier owning the vehicle, parking in authorized locations or driving to seek service or repairs.
Operators of commercial vehicles not traveling on designated truck routes in Houston might be required to provide proof of route or destination.
In a draft city ordinance, an exception is carved out for designated through-truck routes that are closed and prohibit traveling. In those cases, truckers would be able to travel on a local-truck route as directed.
Those not adhering to the truck routes would be subject to fines.
Nothing is set in stone yet. The Houston City Council still has to approve of the plan in late November. After getting the council’s blessing, the plan calls for a pilot program in Settegast, a neighborhood in northeast Houston. That program is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2024. Upon its successful completion, the city would officially adopt a truck route plan next summer.
This plan has been in the works for nearly a year. Houston collected input and ideas from concerned residents and stakeholders through three public meetings, a stakeholder meeting, a community survey, a trucking industry survey, an online truck hotspot mapping tool and neighborhood tours. LL
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