SYRACUSE - Several transportation organizations and concerned citizens voiced their concerns during a public forum on Wednesday night about pending state legislation that would move truck traffic off local roads and onto interstates.

During the session, Stan Gee, the executive deputy commissioner for the New York State Department of Transportation, said the law was meant to preserve the condition of smaller roads and increase safety.

According to data collected by NYSDOT, one 53-foot long tractor-trailer was the equivalent of nearly 6,000 cars, Gee said.

While the interstate was built to handle that kind of traffic, many smaller roads were not. According to the legislation, trucks would only be allowed to use local roads to make nearby deliveries.

But many representatives from the trucking industry believed that limiting the trucks to the interstates instead of using shortcuts such as state routes 90, 38, 38A and 34B, would increase costs for everyone.

Kendra Adams, the executive director for the New York State Motor Truck Association, said a round trip from Syracuse to Corning Glass was nearly 200 miles using shortcuts.

That same trip would be 292 miles if the truck was constricted to using the interstates.

That equated to the additional use of 18.4 gallons of diesel fuel and production of an extra 408 pounds of carbon dioxide, Adams said.

With the average price of diesel fuel in New York coming in at $4.54 per gallon, the additional cost in gas was $83.54.

Because several trucks run a route twice a day, five days a week and with many companies running 10 vehicles at a time, the total costs were much larger, Adams said.

“We are concerned because this resolution is state-wide and would apply to every truck that was longer than 43 feet,” Adams said. “Because New York transports 90 percent of their cargo by trucks, that is going to impact dairy, clothing, food and construction materials. Those costs cannot be absorbed by the trucking industry alone, those will be passed to the consumer.”

Instead of using legislation, Adams said she wanted representatives from all of the involved parties to get together and work out a solution that would be beneficial to everyone.

“The trash haulers have already stepped forward and said they want to talk,” Adams said. “Now it's just an issue of getting everybody else to the table to talk.”

But Skaneateles village Mayor Bob Green said that many smaller communities have already tried that approach.

“Now they want to sit down and talk after there have been some proposed regulations,” Green said. “Where have they been for the past 20 years? We were interested in a discussion. I don't think it's going to happen at this point unless the DOT gets involved.”

For Skaneateles, the trucking issue came down to general quality of life because of noise pollution, and environmental and health concerns due to carbon dioxide and the risk of toxic spills, Green said.

But Adams believed that by forcing trucks to travel greater distances, the legislation would cause additional pollution.

Adams also believed the regulations would cause more accidents because law enforcement would pull over trucks traveling on local roads to make sure they were making a stop at a nearby business.

“There is no way to tell what traffic is through traffic and what traffic is local traffic,” Adams said. “The only way to tell is to pull over a truck and ask and that might happen. And when several of those roads do not have shoulders or a safe place to pull over, the truck could block traffic and cause an accident.”

While several community members had raised safety as a reason for keeping truck traffic to the interstates, Richard Wilder, a spokesperson for NYSDOT, said the trucking industry had fewer accidents per 1 million vehicles than cars.

And when a car and a truck were involved in a multi-vehicle accident, the driver of the car was usually at fault, Wilder said. In all of the fatal accidents that were documented 2006, the driver was at fault.

“In general, truckers are less likely to be intoxicated, we believe driver education may play a role, and trucks are less likely to go as fast as a car,” Wilder said. “According to our data safety is less of a concern than road integrity.”

Staff writer Nate Robson can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 248 or nathan.robson@lee.net