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NY — The New York Farm Bureau said Thursday a Paterson administration proposal originally aimed at keeping garbage haulers from rumbling through picturesque Finger Lakes communities will hurt the state's agriculture industry.
The bureau, which claims some 30,000 members, said the state Department of Transportation's move to ban large trucks from certain rural roads will add millions of dollars in costs to growers and dairy farmers already struggling with the economic downturn.
"Having to route everything around these restrictions is going to be a logistics nightmare," said Mark Nicholson, co-owner of his family's third-generation fruit farm in Geneva in the Finger Lakes region. "We're a rural-based business, and we route our goods on rural roads. That's the only way we can get to our markets in an efficient way."
Nicholson is among the farmers who have joined with the trucking industry and other business interests to oppose the proposal that grew out of complaints over trucks taking back-road shortcuts through some Finger Lakes villages while hauling New York City garbage to an upstate landfill.
The complaints over the years in places such as Skaneateles and Aurora prompted state transportation officials to develop regulations that would prohibit large "through" trucks from using local routes in rural areas.
The period for public comment on the proposal has been extended through Nov. 30. Afterward, DOT officials can either adopt the plan, make changes or withdraw it, according to agency spokesman Charles Carrier.
"We're just trying to encourage these large through vehicles to drive on the routes that were engineered and designed to handle that kind of traffic and not take these other routes," he said.
Carrier said the proposal wouldn't apply to trucks making local deliveries or pickups, such as tankers that service dairy farms.
Under the state proposal, all trucks 45 feet or longer would first have to use major interstate highways before traveling on rural roads. Some farmers also are concerned the DOT will eventually restrict truck traffic on other rural roads across the state.
Kendra Adams of the New York Motor Truck Association said about two dozen organizations representing groups from farmers to retailers have presented their concerns to the governor's office.
"What gets forgotten sometimes in this issue is what's on those trucks and where they're going and why they're going there," said Adams, executive director of the trade group with more than 800 member trucking firms. "All of the businesses across the state rely on the trucking industry in some way or another."
If the regulations get approved, some individual farmers and trucking firms could suffer cost increases in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Farm Bureau said.
Nicholson's Red Jacket Orchards sends a truck loaded with apples and other fruit to New York City each day. Having to reroute just that single truck would cost the company between $15,000 and $30,000 in added transportation costs, he said.
"It's a broad-stroke approach to the issue, and it's not considering the needs of agriculture," Nicholson said. "All of our businesses are located on these rural roads."
