Efforts underway to fix truck parking problem
“The results of a national survey released Friday morning, Aug. 21 confirm it: most states have problems year-round with inadequate truck parking. Along with the survey findings, the Dept. of Transportation announced a new coalition that’ll be focused on this national problem and discussed initiatives on the way to help.
“The survey was conducted as a result of Jason’s Law, which calls for more safe, convenient parking for truck drivers and was enacted as part of the MAP-21 surface transportation funding legislation in 2012. The law is named for Jason Rivenburg, a truck driver who was shot and killed during a robbery attempt in early March 2009 after he was forced to park at an abandoned gas station in Fultonham, SC — the only spot he could find available.
“The survey results will surprise few in the trucking industry, where this is a long-acknowledged problem. The findings can be summed up thus: “Most states reported having truck parking shortages occurring at all times of the day on every day of the week,” a DOT release states.
“The East Coast — where Jason Rivenburg was murdered — shows up in the survey as a focus of truck parking insufficiency. The survey pulls together information from state departments of transportation and finds truck drivers and logistics personnel report the most problems finding parking in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and New England areas.
“The top five highway corridors the survey cites as short on truck parking are I-95, I-40, I-80, I-10 and I-81. States report more problems with truck parking availability in public facilities than at private ones, but among private truck stop owners, “most facilities report being at full capacity primarily during night hours.” Private truck stops report that they fill up mostly during mid-week, but some say they that happens during weekends as well.
Also not surprisingly, those times and capacity issues correlate with survey findings regarding “unofficial” or illegal truck parking in places like highway on- and off-ramps and shoulders. Nearly half of states report unofficial and/or illegal parking in such places, according to the survey findings.”