Gov. Hochul Authorizes Monitoring and Penalizing Overweight Trucks that are Causing the BQE to Crumble

By Yehudit Garmaise

Gov. Kathy Hochul, today, signed a bill into law that authorizes the use of new technology that monitors and issues violations to overweight trucks, whose excessive burdens the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has said is responsible for deterioration of on the cantilever on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE).

The new technology is a “weigh-in-motion program,” in which the DOT will install up to 16 weigh stations on the BQE between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street. 

The weigh stations will determine which trucks exceed the expressway’s 80,000-pound limit and then alert police to issue violations to the drivers of the oversized trucks.

In February, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order that allows the city to fine drivers up to $7,000 for driving an overweight vehicle on the BQE.

“Overweight and off-route trucks are a menace: they destroy our infrastructure and damage our quality of life,” said DOT Commissioner Hank Gutman. said city DOT commissioner Hank Gutman. “Automated enforcement techniques can help keep the streets and highways of New York safe for all who use them.”

In 2020, Mayor de Blasio has commissioned a report that found that more than 11% of the trucks that crossed the BQE, in a three-month period, exceeded the roadway’s 80,000 weight limit. Some of the trucks weighed as much as 170,000 pounds. 

The three-level cantilever along the Brooklyn waterfront is in such “dire condition,” said Carlos Scissura, one of the report’s authors, that parts of the road could become unsafe for drivers within five years. 

The report recommended that the city reduce the number of lanes on the often- congested BQE and for city and state police to issue tickets and fines to prevent overweight trucks from using the delicate structure.

In August, the mayor announced the city’s measures to plan to keep the cantilever safely functioning until 2040: date that is well past its projected lifespan. 

In addition to completing urgent repairs on the cantilever’s retaining wall and waterproofing the structure’s joints to prevent further decay, the mayor said he hoped the automatic weigh stations would be installed under the leadership of the next administration.