4 ms·

Length restrictions are generally looser in the US, but there's one very notable exception: 53' trailers may pass through NYC to Long Island on a couple of high

Length restrictions are generally looser in the US, but there's one very notable exception: 53' trailers may pass through NYC to Long Island on a couple of highways, but may not make pickups or deliveries anywhere in NYC https://www.dot.ny.gov/about-nysdot/faq/are-53-foot-long-trailers-allowed-in-nyc https://www.dot.ny.gov/about-nysdot/faq/are-53-foot-long-tra.... 53' trailers are pretty much the standard large trailer in the US. They are recognizable because they have a little "53" written on the side. Don't bother reporting it to the NYPD if you see one though. They pretty much refuse to enforce laws meant to make NYC safer for its non-driving residents.

notch656a 5y ago
Lol do you know how unsafe it would be for 'non-driving' residents if trailers can't unload food and necessary items to NYC? Non-driving residents depend on semi as much or more than anyone, since non-drivers rarely have the means to transport heavy loads without driving (some may have a team of pack dogs or horses I suppose). >They pretty much refuse to enforce laws meant to make NYC [undeliverable by standard trailers] Good.
- bobbylarrybobby 5y ago
  Or, you know, they could use shorter trucks. What a concept. It's nice of you to opine on how traffic enforcement should happen in a place you (clearly) don't live. The NYPD choose not to enforce traffic laws across the board, and it leads to some dire consequences. In any case, whether or not longer trucks would be better for New York, the decision has already been made that they're not allowed. It's not up to the NYPD to second guess the law.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    Do you live in the entire city of NYC? Or do you just like opining on what the entire rest of the boroughs should do? How practical do you really think it is for the entire country to make special considerations for some special snowflakes that can't handle the standard trailer everyone else uses? If you don't like the long trailers, you're free to choose to not shop at grocery stores and other places that may be using them. Free market and all, maybe someone can open up a store than only unloads cargo from short trailers, we can experiment on what is more successful. If the NYPD enforced (were somehow able to) every single law at every moment to everyone, New Yorkers would be crying to go back to discretionary enforcement in no time.
    - lmm 5y ago
      > If you don't like the long trailers, you're free to choose to not shop at grocery stores and other places that may be using them. Free market and all The free market solution would be that stores that want longer containers can pay for private roads that don't have the length limits, and then we'd see whether the benefit to them is worth the costs that they're imposing on everyone else.
      - notch656a 5y ago
        The free market solution would be to privatize the public roads, yes, at which point the owner of the road would realize it would be much more profitable to allow standard trailers through. Non-drivers would finally start paying their share that way too, as the cost is passed on to the consumer -- more on that in a minute. As it stands now, non-commercial drivers subsidize non-drivers by paying fuel and other taxes that pay for roads. Commercial (semis et al) benefit everyone (especially non-drivers that depend on commercial drivers bringing in goods to them from outside the city), but due to exponential nature of road wear vs vehicle weight, it actually turns out regular non-commercial passenger drivers disproportionately pay for road maintenance. Non-drivers in NYC are taking drivers for a fiscal ride, and all the while at least one of them seems to be begrudging the very semi trailers that keep them alive.
        lmm 5y ago
        > non-commercial drivers subsidize non-drivers by paying fuel and other taxes that pay for roads. The costs of roads are far from fully paid out of those taxes though. So non-drivers are also subsidizing commercial drivers extensively in practice. > Commercial (semis et al) benefit everyone (especially non-drivers that depend on commercial drivers bringing in goods to them from outside the city) Only to the extent that their shipping is providing value, and it's hard to assess that given the distorting subsidy that they're getting. They might be outcompeting more efficient alternative modes of transport, or they might be making marginal-benefit deliveries that actually aren't worth the road wear and space that they're taking up if those costs were fully accounted for. > Non-drivers in NYC are taking drivers for a fiscal ride Nonsense. The land value of roads alone is a huge implicit subsidy to drivers.
- lmm 5y ago
  As a non-driving resident of a city where the maximum vehicle length is 12m and this is enforced, I assure you that that is not a dangerous restriction.
- williamsmj 5y ago
  Worth noting here that the law is ignored by the NYPD in the outer boroughs but it’s actually pretty much impossible to get a 53’ truck onto Manhattan because there are so few ways onto the island, and the only one of the interstates on which 53’ trailers are legal passes through Manhattan. And yet here’s a fun fact: it’s actually possible to buy food and necessary items in Manhattan. The NYPD ignores the law but the national chain stores that cover the island do not. It’s actually so easy to make deliveries and pickups that those stores are well stocked and serve residential neighborhoods that are literally some of the densest on earth. Turns out humans have ways of moving stuff around without 53’ trailers.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > residential neighborhoods that are literally some of the densest on earth. “Some of” is flexible enough to be completely meaningless, but the top, well, many of the densest neighborhoods on earth are anot in North America and have densities in people per square kilometer similar to or greater than NYC’s densest neighborhoods do in people per square mile.
    - williamsmj 5y ago
      If I thought they were the densest residential neighborhoods on earth I would have said so.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    And I'm sure none of those trucks going into Manhattan come from distribution centers in the outer boroughs, which are in turn stocked by standard trailers. Sure you can get stuff around in things other than 53' trailers, but I think those in Manhattan have decided that's a bad idea when they actually buy stuff trucked into NYC on those trailers.
    - williamsmj 5y ago
      Look, 53’ trailers illegally entering Manhattan is a problem. I’ll be the first to admit that. But if you think life on Manhattan is only possible because of a huge illegal trucking operation then I don’t know what to tell you. The US doesn’t have dense cities except NYC, so you may not realise this but rules against big trucks in dense cities are extremely common globally. I get that this offends you aesthetically and you therefore want to think the people of Paris and London and Munich and Hong Kong are miserable and starving because they don’t let trucks in. But that’s not true.

notch656a 5y ago

Lol do you know how unsafe it would be for 'non-driving' residents if trailers can't unload food and necessary items to NYC? Non-driving residents depend on semi as much or more than anyone, since non-drivers rarely have the means to transport heavy loads without driving (some may have a team of pack dogs or horses I suppose). >They pretty much refuse to enforce laws meant to make NYC [undeliverable by standard trailers] Good.

bobbylarrybobby 5y ago
Or, you know, they could use shorter trucks. What a concept. It's nice of you to opine on how traffic enforcement should happen in a place you (clearly) don't live. The NYPD choose not to enforce traffic laws across the board, and it leads to some dire consequences. In any case, whether or not longer trucks would be better for New York, the decision has already been made that they're not allowed. It's not up to the NYPD to second guess the law.
- notch656a 5y ago
  Do you live in the entire city of NYC? Or do you just like opining on what the entire rest of the boroughs should do? How practical do you really think it is for the entire country to make special considerations for some special snowflakes that can't handle the standard trailer everyone else uses? If you don't like the long trailers, you're free to choose to not shop at grocery stores and other places that may be using them. Free market and all, maybe someone can open up a store than only unloads cargo from short trailers, we can experiment on what is more successful. If the NYPD enforced (were somehow able to) every single law at every moment to everyone, New Yorkers would be crying to go back to discretionary enforcement in no time.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > If you don't like the long trailers, you're free to choose to not shop at grocery stores and other places that may be using them. Free market and all The free market solution would be that stores that want longer containers can pay for private roads that don't have the length limits, and then we'd see whether the benefit to them is worth the costs that they're imposing on everyone else.
    - notch656a 5y ago
      The free market solution would be to privatize the public roads, yes, at which point the owner of the road would realize it would be much more profitable to allow standard trailers through. Non-drivers would finally start paying their share that way too, as the cost is passed on to the consumer -- more on that in a minute. As it stands now, non-commercial drivers subsidize non-drivers by paying fuel and other taxes that pay for roads. Commercial (semis et al) benefit everyone (especially non-drivers that depend on commercial drivers bringing in goods to them from outside the city), but due to exponential nature of road wear vs vehicle weight, it actually turns out regular non-commercial passenger drivers disproportionately pay for road maintenance. Non-drivers in NYC are taking drivers for a fiscal ride, and all the while at least one of them seems to be begrudging the very semi trailers that keep them alive.
      - lmm 5y ago
        > non-commercial drivers subsidize non-drivers by paying fuel and other taxes that pay for roads. The costs of roads are far from fully paid out of those taxes though. So non-drivers are also subsidizing commercial drivers extensively in practice. > Commercial (semis et al) benefit everyone (especially non-drivers that depend on commercial drivers bringing in goods to them from outside the city) Only to the extent that their shipping is providing value, and it's hard to assess that given the distorting subsidy that they're getting. They might be outcompeting more efficient alternative modes of transport, or they might be making marginal-benefit deliveries that actually aren't worth the road wear and space that they're taking up if those costs were fully accounted for. > Non-drivers in NYC are taking drivers for a fiscal ride Nonsense. The land value of roads alone is a huge implicit subsidy to drivers.
lmm 5y ago
As a non-driving resident of a city where the maximum vehicle length is 12m and this is enforced, I assure you that that is not a dangerous restriction.
williamsmj 5y ago
Worth noting here that the law is ignored by the NYPD in the outer boroughs but it’s actually pretty much impossible to get a 53’ truck onto Manhattan because there are so few ways onto the island, and the only one of the interstates on which 53’ trailers are legal passes through Manhattan. And yet here’s a fun fact: it’s actually possible to buy food and necessary items in Manhattan. The NYPD ignores the law but the national chain stores that cover the island do not. It’s actually so easy to make deliveries and pickups that those stores are well stocked and serve residential neighborhoods that are literally some of the densest on earth. Turns out humans have ways of moving stuff around without 53’ trailers.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > residential neighborhoods that are literally some of the densest on earth. “Some of” is flexible enough to be completely meaningless, but the top, well, many of the densest neighborhoods on earth are anot in North America and have densities in people per square kilometer similar to or greater than NYC’s densest neighborhoods do in people per square mile.
  - williamsmj 5y ago
    If I thought they were the densest residential neighborhoods on earth I would have said so.
- notch656a 5y ago
  And I'm sure none of those trucks going into Manhattan come from distribution centers in the outer boroughs, which are in turn stocked by standard trailers. Sure you can get stuff around in things other than 53' trailers, but I think those in Manhattan have decided that's a bad idea when they actually buy stuff trucked into NYC on those trailers.
  - williamsmj 5y ago
    Look, 53’ trailers illegally entering Manhattan is a problem. I’ll be the first to admit that. But if you think life on Manhattan is only possible because of a huge illegal trucking operation then I don’t know what to tell you. The US doesn’t have dense cities except NYC, so you may not realise this but rules against big trucks in dense cities are extremely common globally. I get that this offends you aesthetically and you therefore want to think the people of Paris and London and Munich and Hong Kong are miserable and starving because they don’t let trucks in. But that’s not true.