Look back: Schumer raises truck issue in New York | Story

In an effort to reduce the number of garbage haulers on local roads in the Finger Lakes region, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer wrote a letter to New York City Department of Sanitation Commissioner John Dougherty .

Schumer, who has previously introduced legislation requiring trucks carrying hazardous materials or solid waste to remain on the national highway system, asks the commissioner to work with local and state authorities to keep such trucks off the roads (i.e. i.e. highways 38, 38A, 41 and 41A) which pass through small communities.

Hauliers, many of whom travel to the Seneca Meadows landfill in Waterloo, often use local roads as shortcuts and to save on tolls. But many local residents are concerned about the effects these major carriers are having on community infrastructure, quality of life, the environment and general public safety.

Schumer would also like trucking agencies to uphold the “spirit of the contract” with the city, according to a statement from Schumer. These contracts tend to stipulate that trucks should stay on main roads and avoid local streets and residential areas and that the contractor will keep trucks away from environmentally sensitive areas such as wetlands, parks and historic sites in the possible, according to the press release.

In other truck news, Village of Skaneateles Mayor Robert Green and other members of the Upstate New York Safety Coalition Task Force, a group of politicians and regional citizens working to get carriers back on the highways, met with a representative from Governor Eliot Spitzer’s regional government. office last week.

“We’re trying to get the state more involved,” Green said.

Green and the coalition asked Spitzer to support the creation of a routing system for trucks carrying hazardous materials.