CITY OF TONAWANDA, N.Y. — There is a a perennial problem that plagues people in the City of Tonawanda with the rather infamous Young Street CSX railroad bridge, which seems to be a magnet for large trucks.
It happened again before dawn on Thursday as another tractor trailer slammed into the bridge. 2 On Your Side took a closer look at efforts to try to stop it.
City of Tonawanda Mayor John White finds it hard to believe and understand that there are "81 hits on that bridge, so you wonder how structurally sound it is."
Actually, White says he has been assured that CSX Railroad engineers check the rail span after each truck strike, and it can withstand those vehicle body blows.
In this particular case, a truck driver from Texas, who received nine traffic tickets for this incident, struck the bridge with his hauler, then it ripped open the top of his trailer sometime after 3 a.m. Thursday. He told he was enroute to the Syracuse area.
Police say he had a story and excuse that they have heard before. Captain Kevin Ulmer said "the driver advised the officer that he was following his GPS, which often times is the reason provided by drivers."
Ulmer added: "It is frustrating because I would hope and think that as drivers are going along on the roadway, they would see these signs on the street."
There are warning signs on the street, which is technically supposed to be off limits to trucks, but it's not clear how visible the signs may be in the middle of the night.
This, unfortunately, is a problem elsewhere that the state has also tried to crack down on. In fact, Thursday afternoon 2 On Your Side's Dave McKinley spotted another truck in Buffalo, which had a somewhat close call with a bridge on William Street and tied up traffic. The driver had to request police assistance to back up.
In the Albany area a company called SICK USA, with a $1.4 million government grant, installed a system with sensor units at a similar notorious truck magnet bridge. It uses light beams that detect a truck's height and sets off warning signs and lights if it is higher than the bridge clearance.
Back in July of 2022, U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins announced funding for similar warning technology at Tonawanda's Young Street bridge.
So we asked Mayor White for an installation update. He said, "I was promised it would be started in 2024."
Reporter: So sometime this year?
White: "We are looking forward to it. I'm told that it's going to mitigate the problem considerably because it's high tech. UB did a function like this and did some research on it also, and they've had it successful in other cities."
Obviously the concern also is that someday a hazardous cargo could be spilled in a truck-bridge strike near a residential area. Fortunately that has not happened so far in the City of Tonawanda, where they have held emergency drills for that scenario.
Back in January of 2020, the office of U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer sent a letter to lead officials with Google, Apple, and Waze maps, requesting their apps provide truckers with information on these low bridge situations, so there was no response from the Senator's office as to whether they got a response.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has raised similar concerns and suggests extra awareness training for truck drivers.