(Host) A number of smaller towns in Vermont are bracing for the return of heavy truck traffic through their communities.
That’s because a special one-year program that allowed the heavy trucks to stay on interstate highways hasn’t been renewed in Washington.
VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports.
(Kinzel) Most of the federal Interstate system has a weight limit of 80,000 pounds for trucks but a few states have been granted exemptions to this rule.
Last year, the state’s Congressional delegation was able to secure a one year exemption for Vermont in order to study how the change might impact the downtowns of smaller communities.
The deadline for the exemption expired last Friday and Senator Patrick Leahy worked to get an extension included in a massive budget bill.
But Senate Republican leaders objected to the overall budget plan, and when that bill died, so did the extension. Senator Patrick Leahy says he’s very disappointed by this development.
(Leahy) "It was bipartisan. We had it in for both Maine and Vermont and that’s the way it passed last time and it just got caught up in something that had nothing to do with the issues and I am sorry about that."
(Kinzel) One community directly affected by this change is Putney. Town manager Chris Ryan says allowing heavy trucks on the Interstate made a big difference to his town.
(Ryan) "It was just a fact of life – you would just see during the course of the day a lot of these trucks rolling through the village center and it decreased dramatically since the weight limit was raised."
(Kinzel) Ryan says he’s also concerned that the resumption of heavy truck traffic will have a negative impact on route 5 between Putney and Brattleboro – a road that has just been repaired.
(Ryan) "My fear is once they start rolling through here on a regular basis it’s going to degrade this top coat very quickly."
(Kinzel) Vermont Agency of Transportation spokesperson John Ziccconi says the federal government needs a uniform policy for trucks.
(Zicconi) "As a result of this patchwork all surrounding us Vermont has become an island. So when truckers are passing through Vermont they have to get off the Interstate that they can run in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and New York and go to our secondary routes which puts them rumbling through villages and next to schools and crosswalks and shopping centers and that kind of thing."
(Kinzel) Senator Leahy says he’ll try to renew the exemption early in the 2011 session. But until that happens, the heavy trucks will once again be rolling through parts of the state.
For VPR News I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier.