State reports sharp decline in over-height trucks on I-64

Higher fines, bilingual brochures and custom-tailored computer programs are helping win the long struggle against over-height trucks entering the westbound tube at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.

The Virginia Department of Transportation is reporting a 66 percent decline in the number of too-tall trucks that cause all traffic to stop so they can turn around at the Fort Wool island tunnel entrance.

Turning the trucks around is the leading cause of preventable delays on Interstate 64.

Over the past three years, the number of trucks turned back fell from 1,022 in 2005, or about three a day, to 348 last year, or about one a day, VDOT said.

“This is a significant improvement, very impressive,” said Dwayne Cook , VDOT’s director of regional operations.

Cook credited the work to a “whole assortment” of efforts by tunnel workers, including a public outreach campaign that targeted Hispanic truckers who apparently had not understood previous campaigns to educate drivers about the tunnel limitations.

He also credited efforts to get companies such as Garman and TomTom , manufacturers of portable navigation devices, to alert customers to height restrictions at the tunnel by including warnings in their mapping software.

Drivers may not recognize much change in their tunnel experience, officials have said, because the number of trucks has been reduced on a gradual basis and the volume of traffic remains high. On a typical weekday, a little fewer than 100,000 vehicles pass through the tunnels.

Over-height trucks plague all of the region’s older tunnels, but the problem is particularly severe at the tube entrance near Norfolk, where they are a leading cause of congestion along that segment of I- 64.

The reason is that the older, westbound tube is shorter, with an authorized height for trucks set at 13 feet 6 inches. Many trucks, often 14 feet tall or higher, try to squeeze through, some using tricks such as lowering their air-cushion systems to temporarily reduce their profile.

The situation can be confusing because the truckers enter Norfolk through the eastbound tube, which is taller – 14 feet 6 inches – and many of them often assume it’s the same height heading out of town.

The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, which opened in 1992 , is the region’s newest tube. It does not have a problem with tall trucks because, at 16 feet 6 inches from road deck to ceiling tile, it can accommodate all but the most jumbo-sized rigs.

To keep traffic moving through the Hampton tube, VDOT operates an elaborate system of electronic sensors, highway signs and workers in jumpsuits who wave warning flags at truckers whose rigs trigger alarms.

When a tall truck shows up, it’s usually stopped at an inspection station at Willoughby where it can easily turn around with no effect on traffic.

VDOT recorded 11,757 trucks stopped at its Willoughby booth station in 2005. Yet even that has come down with the public outreach campaign, dropping to 7,998 last year, a 32 percent decline. If the truck gets past this checkpoint, then it must be flagged down and stopped at the tunnel entrance.

If it must turn around, tunnel officials have to stop all westbound traffic to allow the trucker to get off the interstate and drive across the tunnel island. Then eastbound traffic must be stopped to allow the trucker access to the eastbound lanes and passage out of the region.

Even short delays in traffic flow can reverberate through the system, delaying other vehicles for miles.

Frustrated with the problem, VDOT launched a campaign in 2005 to fix it. Armed with a tougher law and support from the Virginia State Police, VDOT won modest reductions in over-height trucks with $500 fines and a threat of points on a commercial driver’s license.

Early results were uneven, however, prompting the department to seek even tougher fines in 2006 – $1,000 for the first offense. Worse still is the potential three points that are added to a commercial driver’s license. Too many points on a trucker’s license and the license is revoked – and so is the trucker’s livelihood.

A second conviction now carries a $2,500 fine.

VDOT then called on the Virginia Trucking Association for help spreading the word through the social trucking network.

The state agency began to track the companies whose drivers were the top 10 offenders and assigned someone to call the company’s loss prevention office whenever tickets were issued.

VDOT learned that many of the offenders were out-of-town truckers – local drivers tend to avoid the height-challenged tubes – with some of the biggest offenders being moving companies. “We handed out fliers at inspection stations and shared them with other tunnels in the area,” said Jessie R. Neal , VDOT’s facility manager at HRBT.

Neal said that concerns also were shared with managers at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, where truckers passing through received the fliers. VDOT also got help from the Department of Motor Vehicles to supply weigh stations with still more information.

The idea for bilingual fliers came from Tina Sims , superintendent of operations for HRBT, who also has been working with electronic mapping companies to incorporate height restrictions information into software.

While there has been success, Sims said it may be impossible to stop the problem all together.

Some truckers apparently ignore the warnings.

“The companies that write the software can’t guarantee that drivers will take the route that the computer provides,” she said.

Many drivers make independent decisions based on weather and traffic conditions, she said.

Sims is also in charge of calling on trucking companies to alert them when drivers are ticketed. “Those companies have been very helpful and supportive,” she said.

Tom Holden, (757) 446-2331, tom.holden@pilotonline.com