New Canaan Police officials say they may contact state authorities following a complaint from a resident regarding truck traffic on Route 123.
According to Police Chief Leon Krolikowski, the department received a complaint that “truck traffic is increasing substantially in noise” and the resident also attributed the change to trucks “trying to avoid weigh stations on the interstate.”
“We have no evidence of that,” Krolikowski told members of the Police Commission at their July 18 meeting, held at Town Hall.
“We know 123 is a heavy truck route,” the chief said.
The department may contact state police to find out whether they have the ability to weigh trucks and ensure they’re in compliance “but we can’t get rid of the truck traffic or anything like that.”
“We can make sure the trucks are as safe as possible,” the chief said.
Interstate 95 has a weigh station at Exit 2 in Greenwich and Interstate 84 has a weigh station in Danbury. When they’re open, all trucks and commercial vehicles must stop to be weighed. According to the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles, those stations were open for 181 and 26 shifts, respectively, during the six-month period that ended June 30. Greenwich and Danbury had 239 and 23 troopers assigned to them during that six-month period, respectively, and saw 60,720 and 6,585 total trucks weighed.
Here’s a breakdown of violations cited at the weigh stations in the first half of 2018:
Citations Issued at Nearest Weigh Stations
Type of violation | Danbury | Greenwich |
---|---|---|
Overweight | 95 | 702 |
DOT permit | 24 | 0 |
Failure to stop at weigh station | 10 | 120 |
Oversize vehicle | 28 | 59 |
Driver's license | 1 | 37 |
Registration | 6 | 59 |
Fuel tax | 23 | 214 |
Logbook | 5 | 37 |
Other | 29 | 175 |
Defective equipment | 79 | 464 |
Hazardous materials | 1 | 6 |
Doubt that weigh stations figure into increase in truck traffic as they are not near to route 124 and there are several other better routes available to go around the Danbury or Greenwich tolls which by the way have been in service for decades. What you are seeing is a general increase in truck traffic which will see a further boost with the opening of Nordstrum and Bloomingdales in Norwalk