Provides for weight and dimension limitations for certain vehicles operated in a city not wholly included within a county

1. Enhances the NYS Department of Transportation's ability to enforce its divisible truck and vehicle hauling permitting system or cooperative agreements with other agencies or authorities that issue a unified or reciprocal truck hauling permit.

2. Makes various amendments to authorize the NYS DOT to issue a permit to operate and move a truck or vehicle or combination of vehicles, on highways in the city of New York, whose weights or dimensions exceed the limits of NYS and NYC DOT limitations, as long as such vehicles operate pursuant to a cooperative agreement entered into between the NYS DOT, NYC DOT, MTA, City of New York, NY/NJ Port Authority, or the NYS Bridge Authority.

The roads that can be used for these cooperative agreements are: Interstate 95 (I-95)from the Westchester/Bronx County line to I-695, I-695 to I-295, and I-295 to I-495 to the Queens/Nassau County border. This is one Interstate route can be used to deliver goods from Upstate New York to Long Island.

3. Authorizes trucks to operate on highways with not only two tires on each side of an axle, but wide based single tires on each side of an axle. This expands the types of trucks that will be able to obtain a permit to move goods in the State and City of New York on certain approved routes.

Section 2: Adds 4 new subdivisions to Vehicle and Traffic Law section 385 to authorize and encourage the NYS DOT to enter into cooperative agreements to issue a permit or permits to operate or move vehicles or a combination of vehicles, the weights or dimensions of which exceed the limitations otherwise provided for by statute or rule & regulation. These cooperative agreements may be entered into with either some or all of the following transportation regulatory agencies (i.e., the NYC DOT, NYS Thruway, MTA, and NYS Bridge Authority) . Each of these governmental agencies has its own restrictions on the types, size and weight of vehicles that can be driven over such agencies' roads, bridges and tunnels for loads that need either a divisable or non-divisable load permit.

Justification

Under current law, those who operate commercial motor vehicles that carry cargo or large objects on trucks, semis', tandem trailers or flat bed trucks, must obtain a permit for oversized and over-weight vehicles to use New York State Highways, highways that transverse New York City, and bridges and tunnels operated by the MTA and NYS Bridge Authority. For those common carriers that have either large or oversized cargo, they sometimes need to obtain permits from the NYS DOT, NYC DOT, NYS Thruway Authority, MTA and NYS Bridge Authority to travel just one Interstate highway route from Westchester County to get to Long Island. This is a long and cumbersome regulatory and paper work process for trucking companies to simply deliver goods from Upstate New York to Long Island. This process hinders commerce between Up-state and Long Island, increases transportation costs, and delays freight deliveries.

Due to the high cost and lengthy time needed to obtain such permits, many truckers operate and deliver goods on the Interstate highways between Upstate and Long Island without obtaining such overweight and oversize cargo permits. This large scale violation of the law places legitimate haulers who obtain all of the requisite permits at a competitive disadvantage both as to price and time of delivery.

The purpose of this bill is to authorize and encourage agencies such as the NYS DOT to reach out to other truck & cargo permitting agencies such as the NYC DOT, MTA, NYS Thruway, and NYS Bridge Authority and enter into cooperative agreements so that one coordinated weight limit or over sized cargo permit may be either issued by one agency or that permits issued by cooperating regulatory authorities can be recognized thru reciprocity agreements. The benefit of the bill is to encourage the establishment of a one stop shopping forum to obtain hauling permits to quickly and inexpensively haul cargo from Upstate New York to Long Island.

Overall, the benefits of this bill are to establish a system that streamlines the permitting process to aid legitimate cargo haulers that use our state and city highways and bridges, and to curtail the illegal hauling of cargo without a permit. It is important to curtail the illegal hauling of overweight and oversized cargo to preserve the structural integrity of the State's highway system and bridges.

Effective date

This act shall take effect 60 days after it shall have become law, and shall be deemed repealed on December 31, 2014.