A Weigh Station Victory
by Bob Duff
Sep. 23, 2006

After years of fighting for extended hours at the Greenwich truck weigh on Interstate 95, state Sen. Andrew J. McDonald and I were informed very late in the legislative session that the state Department of Public Safety has found a way to do the seemingly impossible: extend the hours of the weigh station by 25 hours per week.

The announcement, made in an April 20 letter to us by Department of Public Safety Commissioner Leonard C. Boyle, caught us somewhat by surprise. For months we had been arguing back and forth with the department over the issue of extending the operational hours of the Greenwich weigh station on the grounds that public safety and homeland security would be improved by the removal of unsafe trucks from our state highways, and that the expansion would more than pay for itself with the fines levied against those unsafe 18-wheelers.

According to the state Department of Transportation, in 2002 Interstate 95 accounted for 75 percent of all tractor-trailer related fatalities in the state, as well as 61 percent of all tractor-trailer accidents and 69 percent of all related injuries. And in 2004, daily traffic counts at the New York State/Greenwich line averaged 127,200 vehicles per day – nearly 1 million cars and trucks every week!

These horrendous figures have only been buttressed in recent days by news stories outlining how dangerous to this day Interstate 95 continues to be for Connecticut commuters.

Our arguments were met with resistance earlier in the session, until a face-to-face meeting with Commissioner Boyle finally convinced him of our cause. Due to our research and perseverance, the department has now created a plan which calls for adding 25 hours per week to the Greenwich weigh station, staffing it 12 hours per day, Monday through Friday, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Currently, state law dictates that the weigh station must to be open only 8 shifts per week, which is not nearly enough to ensure safety.

The wrinkle, however, is that the agreement came much too late in the state's budget-making process to be included in the final budget negotiations. Sen. McDonald and I won a million dollar line-item in funding for the expansion in the Appropriations Committee budget, but it was removed at the last moment in the final negotiated budget. Such is the fate of projects that are opposed by a state agency for months and months, only to be endorsed in the waning hours of the legislative session.

But I am not disheartened. We have won the battle to extend weigh station hours in Greenwich, and have done so in a fiscally responsible manner. The momentum is ours as this issue progresses, and I am confident that the legislature will appropriate the necessary funding next year to ensure public safety and homeland security on our state's highways.

In the meantime, I am calling on the governor to use a tiny portion – less than $1.6 million – of this year's projected $791 million surplus to expand the Greenwich weigh station hours. After all, extending the hours of the weigh station doesn't really cost the state anything because for every dollar allocated for operations we receive two dollars in revenue from fines.

Despite some delay and disappointment, my commitment to the people of Norwalk, Darien and all of Fairfield County on this matter will not waiver, and the money should be released immediately. I hope the governor sees the wisdom of this, too.

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