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Avon looks to limit large truck traffic

Christine Ina Casillas

Large truck traffic along Metcalf Road in Avon has some town leaders ready to prevent bigger vehicles from traveling the steep road all together.

“We shouldn’t have these large trucks on that road,” said Avon Mayor Buz Reynolds. “The road isn’t big enough to hold them.”

At times, the truck traffic has backed up travelers driving down Metcalf Road for more than a half-mile into the Wildridge neighborhood, Reynolds said.



“We’re not trying to stop deliveries,” Reynolds said, “just the (trucks) that shouldn’t be on a two-lane road.”

The town is looking at ways to create less congestion along the road, but Avon Town Manager Larry Brooks said it might not be a wise idea for a future ordinance to be limited to Metcalf Road.

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“We can’t just consider Metcalf Road, but other roads in town with the same problems,” Brooks said.

The concerns arose when large trucks started piling on the two-lane road and couldn’t maneuver through the traffic, Reynolds said.

“The original project that was built (along Metcalf) was done so that these trucks could maneuver through the parking lot,” he said. “But now, the trucks are a lot longer, bigger and can store more capacity. It’s harder for them to maneuver through that road, especially in the middle of winter.”

Brooks said the town has asked other municipalities about the congestion of large trucks on smaller roads, but the other towns had few solutions to suggest.

“Some of the other towns contemplated delivery hours,” Brooks said. “But (the towns) didn’t discuss truck length.”

Restrictions on large trucks cannot be enforced townwide, but can be enforced regionally, he said.

“The town was designed to handle large trucks,” he said. “I’d be hard-pressed to tell (store owners) that they can’t have trucks deliver to them. I wouldn’t want to tell Pier 1 Imports, Wal-Mart or The Home Depot that.”

Other council members suggested that truck companies and local businesses figure out how to manage truck traffic.

But Brooks said it’s not just the large trucks that cause problems.

“You can have smaller trucks, and they get stuck, and it still causes the same problems by backing up traffic for miles,” he said. “Back when I was middle-aged, the criteria for truck size was different. The trucks were a lot smaller back then.”

Christine Ina Casillas can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 607 or at ccasillas@vaildaily.com.


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