Texas Town Bans Truck Parking

College Station, Texas is the latest in the supposedly cool trend of “solving” the truck parking issue by making truck parking illegal. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

Details

“Enforcement was delayed until Oct. 1 to ensure a smooth transition and allow appropriate public notification and education through the city’s communication channels, signage, windshield flyers, message boards, and direct outreach to the trucking community,” the city said in regards to the truck parking ban. As of that date, commercial vehicles weighing over 26,001 pounds are at risk for towing, with notable exceptions such as public works vehicles, vehicles having their goods actively unloaded, and repair/maintenance vehicles.

College Station is the latest city in a recent trend of making the truck parking problem invisible by threatening those who do it within its borders. Our first record of it is Minneapolis in the middle of 2021, but since then other locations such as New York City and St. Paul have enacted similar enforcements.

While this ban may make the citizens of College Station feel better about not seeing commercial trucks parked in areas such as shopping centers overnight, it does not resolve the problem of truckers spending an average of an hour every night to find a proper parking spot.

Conclusion

While some areas are implementing laws that only alleviate the symptoms of a dearth of parking for trucks and other commercial vehicles, others are stepping up to the plate to make the roads easier to access by reducing the time spent to find a safe spot for the night. For instance, in the start of 2024 the United States Department of Transportation has provided grants to a handful of states to bolster truck parking numbers, with one rest area planned to increase its spaces by over 400%. With the ratio of spots-to-trucks at approximately 10:1, the industry can use all the help it could get. Maybe College Station could do good in the future by creating a public lot for truckers to park safely while delivering goods to the city of over 100,000 people, rather than punishing them.

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