Not trucker friendly: How I-95 collapse is impacting truckers, supply chain
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Long-term closures and detours from the I-95 collapse are expected to hit both local and national supply chains. Simply put, time is money.
Truck drivers we've talked to at the King of Prussia Service Plaza, just right off the turnpike, agree it's certainly taking more time for them to move goods around the Delaware Valley with that chunk of I-95 closed.
The truck lot at the KOP Service Plaza was packed Tuesday afternoon. Many drivers say they're trying to navigate how to get around now with detours in place following the partial interstate collapse.
"You're going through different routes, you're going through different directions that really aren't trucker friendly," Zach Coombs said.
Tuesday's haul for trucker Coombs would have normally taken him on I-95 as he drove from York, Pennsylvania to Lakewood, New Jersey but the miles-long shutdown took him everywhere but.
"I had to detour so I took another 45 minutes to an hour to get anywhere so I had to plan that in my day and we're already facing a timer when we start," Coombs said.
Rebecca Oyler with the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association says at last check, some 14,000 trucks passed through the impacted area of I-95 every day.
With the partial closure now, truck drivers have to navigate through residential areas with much smaller streets.
Right now, the association is telling its members to look for routes even outside of the one PennDOT recommends, which includes using Route 1.
"Putting 14,000 trucks on an area with 60 stop lights is not going to be ideal as anyone can recognize," Oyler said. "We are concerned about that."
Oyler echoes what we heard from truck drivers. Many of the detours, they believe, aren't suitable for truck traffic.
"When they're running into traffic or they're sitting in traffic on US-1, there's no break from those hours of service regulations so they're going to have to take breaks," Oyler said. "Some of these areas on these local roads are not made to accommodate trucks."
"I am not heading south if I don't have to," driver Pat Livecchi said. "Now I think what they need to do is they need to ease the detours, rather than have all the traffic going through the neighborhoods like they have."
Zeke Zabinski of Penn Jersey Diesel and Trailer said it's difficult to find new routes for trucks because many could have low-clearance bridges or overpasses that trucks couldn't get by.
Supply chain issues
When he visited the site of the collapse yesterday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the loss of this segment of I-95 may lead to higher prices for some goods.
Sean Greene with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission added, "I think everybody can expect increased travel times and delays for not only for commuting but for deliveries primarily that's going to be because of that broken, very important broken link on a spine that goes north south on that region. But there's also going to be delays because of the detours on local roads that just weren't designed to handle the volume that's going to have to get off of 95 and onto those alternative routes."
The Manager of the Office of Freight and Clean Transportation notes other routes including the New Jersey Turnpike and 295 are used to move national freight, while 95 is utilized most often for regional goods. Greene said consumers should also expect delivery delays.
"The challenge is going to be for those 500 plus local businesses and for that port that's located right there in that neighborhood," Green said. "Getting those folks those deliveries because not only is 95 closed, but there's going to be heavy traffic congestion and road closures in the local road network that those business rely on to get their goods to I-95."
As for Coombs, he feels the next few months without I-95 are going to be a headache for just about everyone.
"It's going to make the days longer and the stuff that we haul is not going to get to the shelves," Coombs said.
Another thing we heard today from truck drivers, please respect them on the road.
One driver said they want the public to know doing their best to get goods safely to their destination.
It is going to take more time right now but cutting them off, stopping suddenly, and the like just makes things worse.
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, trucks haul billions of tons of products every year and are the most common form of transporting goods in the U.S.