Truck on BC Lower Mainland highway (Credit: Marcin Chady, flickr Creative Commons)

Trucks are perhaps the most common means of moving freight between municipalities and delivering goods and services to businesses and residents.The benefits of having designated truck routes are many. Truck routes allow municipalities to manage the life expectancy of roads and bridges, improve traffic operations, and address public concerns about noise and safety.

Bigger than the average vehicle, trucks have particular route and right-of-way requirements. Planning and design considerations for truck routes include adjacent land uses, other road users (pedestrians and cyclists), special road surface treatments and building treatments, time restrictions, and right-of-way design specifications such as lane width, corner geometry, and sign placement.

Municipalities use different approaches when it comes to developing truck routes to meet their specific circumstances, and one of the challenges is maintaining route continuity between municipalities.

Download Spring 2015

Find out more about the City of Coquitlam’s approach to truck routes from author Jamie Umpleby, the city’s director of public works, in the Spring 2015 issue of Input page 22.

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