Motorists Incensed As Delivery Trucks Block Rush Hour Lanes
Posted November 20, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It never fails. You’re in a hurry to get where you’re going during rush hour when you suddenly turn into that narrow street downtown and bingo! There’s a truck making a delivery blocking traffic and sitting right in your way.
Talk about the old cliché of east is east and west is west – but in this case, neither the driver and trucker shall meet in agreement over who should be allowed to sit there when Toronto’s fierce traffic is at its worst.
Motorists have one theory about it.
“It’s crap,” spits one without hiding the fury. “They should get rid of it.”
“Oh, I hate it,” echoes another.
“Terrible. It’s awful,” concludes a third.
Some truckers know they’re in the way, but concede there’s not much they can do about it.
“We have no choice,” one maintains, as his vehicle takes up an entire lane of Adelaide St. Monday afternoon.
“If we don’t wait here, we’re going to be doing circles around the blocks for hours trying to make our deliveries,” another chimes in.
Many motorists complain truck drivers appear to be given leeway by police, who are accused of not enforcing traffic laws equally. But the drivers say it just isn’t so.
“Two parking tickets given to us in a matter of 8 minutes, one is $60 and one is $30, in one day,” relates one. Most companies are aware their workers are breaking the rules and factor in the cost of tickets as the price of doing business.
But motorists would like to see the same rules that cities like New York and London have brought in – banning delivery trucks during rush hours. It’s been tried here before, but without success.
To find out what the current rules are and who can – and can’t – legally stop, see the list below.
The city’s director of Transportation Services, Andy Koropeski, tells CityNews.ca there are three separate levels of parking enforcement in the downtown core. And the following rules apply to anyone driving there – including delivery trucks.
No parking
It allows vehicles to stop while actually engaging in picking up or dropping off persons or merchandise, as long as drivers are still in the car/truck or near it.
No standing
You can only stop your vehicle to drop off a passenger, but you can’t get out and start unpacking boxes or items from your trunk or truck.
No stopping
It means you aren’t allowed to stop for any reason except an emergency.
If you see someone violating the rules, your only choice is calling the police. But as Koropeski notes, by the time most officers arrive on scene, the offending vehicle is often gone and there’s little the cop can do.
A proposal put forth several years ago to ban all truck deliveries in the downtown core during rush hours was welcomed by many drivers, but it was eventually found to be not very realistic.
Some orders can’t wait, while others wouldn’t be able to reach open businesses in time.
And the cost of rerouting all that traffic was seen as having an overall detrimental effect on the economy. So despite studying the issue, city politicians agreed it simply wasn’t viable.
Which is why the war between drivers and truckers continues unabated to this day.
