Credit: Adobe Stock
Introduction
According to the 2021 Fact Sheet: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, one in five miles of U.S. highways and major roads and over 45,000 bridges are in poor condition. A major contributor to road damage stems from heavy or excess weight vehicles – or to be more precise – the heavy axle loads of these vehicles onto the road surface and/or pavement. As claimed by an article of Inside Science, this damage grows exponentially with the axle load of the vehicle. For comparison, a 40-ton commercial truck with 8 axles causes 625 times more road damage than a 2-ton passenger sedan with 2 axles.
The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) is a heavily used highway that comprises a critical link of I-278 – the sole Interstate highway in Brooklyn that connects Manhattan, Staten Island, and Queens in New York. Regionally, it is also the only freight route into the New York City (NYC) area from New Jersey to the south through Staten Island and a vital freight route for Nassau and Suffolk Counties. This portion of BQE was completed in 1954; parts of the expressway are at the end of their design life and in a deteriorating state.
While urgent repairs are underway to protect this critical piece of infrastructure, additional means to slow down further deterioration needed to be identified. The New York State legislature authorized the NYC Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) to conduct automated overweight vehicle enforcement through a weigh-in-motion system demonstration program on this section of the BQE in 2021.
Enforcement of vehicle weight limits
A section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in New York.
Credit: New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT)
While urgent repairs are underway to protect this critical piece of infrastructure, additional means to slow down further ..
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