Why Are There So Many Big Rigs On Watt Avenue?
SACRAMENTO COUNTY (CBS13) — If you've driven down Watt Avenue in Sacramento County, there's a good chance you've seen many big rigs that some viewers say are tearing up the roadway and adding to an already congested commute.
It's one of the busiest non-highway roads in the Sacramento area with a mix of pedestrians crossing often, stop-and-go traffic and a heavy flow of cars. But something else is a routine sight.
Viewers contacted us wondering why a street they say wasn't built for that kind of traffic has so many big rigs on it.
"The vehicle code does allow trucks to travel on local roadways," said Lupe Rodriguez, the county's principal transportation engineer.
That's the quick answer, but we wanted to dig deeper to find out why Watt Avenue has such a heavy load of trucks. Traffic experts point out there are typically more trucks on roads that have river crossings like Sunrise Boulevard and Watt Avenue.
When traffic builds along Watt Avenue, the trucks can be easy targets for the blame game because of their size. The trucks haven't caused more accidents along the roads, and the county can't specifically deny access to some trucks and not others.
For now, drivers will just have to keep on truckin', sharing the road with all vehicles, while steering clear during mid-morning hours when the rigs tend to make a lot of deliveries.