Tractor-trailer trouble: Truckers’ Suffolk shortcut causes danger, damage
SUFFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but around parts of Suffolk, it’s far from the wisest. Truckers are using a shortcut that doesn’t permit their 18-wheelers, damaging property and putting lives at risk.
The shortcut runs between routes US 460 to the north and US 58 to the south. It includes Lake Meade Drive and Indian Trail, among other roads. The area is dotted with warehouses and distribution centers, with the Port 460 Logistics Center on the horizon.
Anne Goodson has lived on Lake Meade Drive for 15 years, right next to the bridge that crosses Lake Cahoon. She fears that, under the weight of the heavy trucks, “the bridge will end up collapsing on someone and hurting them.”
The shortcut runs along narrow, rural, residential roads that weren’t designed for tractor-trailers.
“Two school buses going side-by-side is a feat here, let alone a tractor trailer,” Goodson said.
A raised railroad crossing where Lake Meade intersects with Lake Cahoon Road creates a different problem. The trailer portion can get stuck on the crossing.
That’s exactly what happened in 2012, when a Western Express truck was sheared in half by an oncoming freight train. Luckily no one was hurt.
Signs are posted along the rural road, but by then it’s too late.
“If a tractor trailer’s turning, by the time he straightens his rig out, that sign is way behind him and he can’t see it,” Goodson said.
And once they get to Indian Trail, they’re on track to the point of no return. An 11-foot clearance beneath a train trestle does not work when the average height of a tractor-trailer is 13 feet.
“When they get to the tunnel, there’s nowhere to go,” said resident Peggy Spivey, who lives about a mile from the tunnel underpass. “They have to back up all the way.”
“They will run into the ditch,” Spivey said, “and they just keep right on a going because they still can’t go anywhere because the tunnel is there, and there’s right much damage.”
Spivey posted her own sign, telling truckers not to use her driveway as a turnaround.
“They will come in there anyway,” Spivey said. “They will get real rude to you. They will curse at me, (use) hand gestures.”
She remembers a rookie driver who ended up with no way out.
“He only had his license for three months,” Spivey said. “He couldn’t turn the truck around. My husband had to do it for him.”
Goodson recalled when another driver got stuck.
“He ended up getting fired on the spot when his company showed up,” Goodson said.
“The city needs to take a firmer stance,” Goodson said, adding that she has made her case at City Council meetings several times.
Deputy City Manager Kevin Hughes said trying to convince truckers to use the main routes is a never-ending journey.
“[If you’re a trucker], once you enter one of these road systems, you should be very uncomfortable,” Hughes said. “They’re not built to the width that you want to feel comfortable with. They’re unforgiving.”
Hughes said he meets regularly with trucking groups, and the city has simplified signage to get the point across.
“It’s really a campaign that never goes away because with the Port of Virginia seeing more activity,” he said, “we know we’re gonna see increased truck traffic for quite some time.”
Spivey said her costs for mailbox, phone box and landscaping repairs over the years have reached about $1,000.
“They just get out there and they don’t care,” Spivey said. “They get in a bind and they think that we should accommodate them.”
Goodson said the Army Corps of Engineers has looked periodically at the bridge that crosses Lake Cahoon. The Corps did not immediately respond to our request for a status update on the bridge.
Hughes said the city will look into working with VDOT to post signs out on the main roads telling truck drivers they can’t turn onto roads such as Kings Fork and Providence roads, where the short cut often begins.
But Hughes said technology will be the key to solving this dangerous problem — convincing truckers to use commercial GPS, and not the ones we have on our phones. Commercial GPS plots main routes between points A and B, and not along residential roads.
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