The following information has been received from GoRail:
Congress is going to be voting this week on whether or not to create a 10-state (which states are still TBD) pilot program to allow an increase in freight truck weight from 80,000 lbs to 91,000 lbs! This “pilot” has the potential to expand and wreak havoc on roads and bridges, which we taxpayers help pay to maintain.
The vote in Congress is expected to happen in the next day or two. Please contact your Members of Congress by expedited means (phone call, email, fax or social media) and tell them that you oppose this pilot project. For those that use Twitter, tweets can have a major impact on the decisions of our elected leaders. GoRail has offered some sample tweets that you might use:
Remember to tag your Member of Congress (MOC) so they get the message:
- #Infrastructure is king — [tag MOCs] should say no to heavier trucks that would undermine CA highways & bridges.
- The US govt subsidizes heavy trucks $1.9B each year — stop heavier trucks from costing CA taxpayers even more. [tag MOCs]
- Congress should put the brakes on heavier trucks that damage CA roads & don’t pay their fair share. [tag MOCs]
- Heavier trucks would inflict even more damage on CA roads & pay for even less of their damage. #NoHeavierTrucks [tag MOCs]
- Trucks only pay 80% of damage they cause; even heavier trucks wld only pay 50% — bad for CA roads. [tag MOCs] #NoHeavierTrucks
- .[tag MOCs] say #noheaviertrucks this week — they wld pound CA roads & bridges w/o paying their fair share of damage.
- Heavier trucks = more freight diverted from rail, bad news for CA roads, drivers & air quality. Urge [tag MOCs] to say #NoHeavierTrucks.
- Congress should say NO to heavier trucks that wld divert freight from rail — bad for CA econ, roads & enviro. [tag MOCs]
The following GoRail tweets may be re-tweeted as well:
- https://twitter.com/GoRail/
status/884411452328734720 - https://twitter.com/GoRail/
status/884414349380636673 - https://twitter.com/GoRail/
status/884417927025491969
This policy shift hasn’t received much media attention, but here’s a good article if you want to read more about it: Big Rigs Getting Bigger? Congress Under Pressure To Raise Truck Weight Limits – Bloomberg BNA by Nancy Ognanovich, July 7, 2017
Heavier trucks would mean more roadway and bridge damage, more traffic accidents, and because of traffic diversion from railroads to trucks, more roadway congestion and air pollution. Please urge your legislators to vote against the pilot program proposal.
