New York Metropolis Begins Automated Weight Enforcement Concentrating on Vans on Brooklyn-Queens Expressway – Security & Compliance

New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams and New York Metropolis Division of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez introduced that town will start what they name a first-in-the-nation automated enforcement program focusing on obese vehicles on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) this month.

The BQE faces properly documented structural challenges, Adams and Rodriguez famous in a press launch. The brand new software will assist town shield the present roadway for all customers, together with vehicles throughout the authorized restrict, in addition to neighborhood members — serving to to maintain the roadway secure because the Adams administration pursues an accelerated effort to re-envision and redesign the BQE.

New Weigh-in-Movement Expertise

Below the brand new automated enforcement program, superior weigh-in-motion (WIM) sensors will decide the load of a given car on the city-owned parts of the BQE and sync with license plate cameras to situation citations to these discovered to be in violation of weight limits outlined in state and federal regulation.

The brand new program will kick off for Queens-bound visitors with a 90-day warning interval starting on Aug. 10, after which, beginning Nov. 8, obese vehicles will likely be topic to a $650 high-quality per violation. Infrastructure will likely be put in for Staten-Island sure visitors this yr, with the identical 90-day warning interval going down earlier than violations are issued.

The brand new program additionally expands town’s efforts to implement state legal guidelines designed to guard the lifespan of roads and bridges, and it builds on ongoing focused enforcement efforts by the New York Metropolis Police Division in addition to DOT’s observe file of administering profitable automated visitors enforcement applications. Extra details about truck weight limits and the weigh-in-motion program is accessible on-line.

“New York Metropolis is main the nation in defending and reimagining our crucial infrastructure, and this first-in-the-nation weigh-in-motion program will likely be a crucial software not solely to guard the roadway but additionally to assist our aggressive efforts to re-envision a safer and greener BQE,” mentioned Adams. “The BQE is a crucial driver of our total area’s financial system, and we’ll implement the regulation to maintain our metropolis’s restoration transferring full pace forward.”

“Chubby vehicles trigger put on and tear that requires expensive upkeep and reduces the lifespan of our roads and bridges. We have to hold obese vehicles off our streets, and New York Metropolis is main on this with the first-in-the-nation automated weigh-in-motion enforcement system to situation violations to those that break the regulation,” added Rodriguez. 

Educating Truck Operators

The brand new automated enforcement program on the BQE was approved by the enactment of S6246/A6225, sponsored by New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes and New York State Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, and signed into regulation by New York Governor Kathy Hochul on July 28. The regulation and the enforcement program solely apply to the Metropolis of New York-owned span of the BQE from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Avenue.

DOT is partnering with the trucking trade to coach truck operators in regards to the new automated weight restrict enforcement with the objective of stopping obese autos from ending up on town’s roadways within the first place. DOT can also be working with the NYPD and different companions to determine and goal enforcement alongside different corridors that obese vehicles could attempt to use in its place.

Related Cities with Good Transportation (C2SMART) has labored intently with DOT to put in and monitor weigh-in-motion sensors alongside the city-owned part of the BQE. DOT’s evaluation has recognized practically 10% of all vehicles on the BQE as obese — considerably exacerbating the affect from that harm to the triple cantilever construction.

DOT can also be working with communities alongside the BQE hall on two initiatives.

BQE Central will repair the city-owned construction from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Avenue, and BQE North and South will determine upgrades for all different segments of the BQE hall in Brooklyn.

With federal funds newly out there by means of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation, the Adams administration is pursuing a possibility to improve the BQE for the twenty first century.

All through this course of, DOT will proceed with interim repairs to the Atlantic-to-Sands part to make sure it stays secure. Security monitoring of this part of the freeway, together with the triple cantilever, will proceed by means of a mixture of normal in-person inspections and sensors positioned on the construction.