NYC will start enforcing truck weight limits on the Staten Island-bound side of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, transportation officials said on Wednesday.
Owners of the overly heavy vehicles will be subject to hefty fines after the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) expands its crackdown using the weigh-in-motion (WIM) automated enforcement on the city-owned, cantilevered segment of the BQE starting June 22.
The system works by weighing passing trucks and using automated sensor technology synced with license plate readers.
Fines will be $650 for owners of overweight trucks who break the traffic law.
Currently, the system is only used in the Queens-bound direction of the roadway.
A 90-day warning period began in March, alerting drivers that they were in violation of state law. Automated enforcement in the area will begin this Sunday. DOT officials said more than 3,000 warnings were given during the first 75 days of the warning period.
The automated sensors will only be deployed on the city-owned part of the interstate between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street in Brooklyn, matching the current enforcement in the opposite direction.
Ydanis Rodriguez, DOT commissioner, said the enforcement program will help keep the aging roadway in stable condition and minimize repair work.
“Overweight trucks cause wear-and-tear on our roadways and we all pay the price through expensive repairs to our infrastructure,” the commissioners said. “That is why we are expanding our role as a nationwide leader by cracking down on overweight vehicles on the BQE, now deploying state-of-the-art roadway weight sensors for Staten Island-bound traffic.”
WIM enforcement on the Queens-bound side has been successful, DOT officials said, with the number of overweight vehicles lower by 60%.
Some local politicians have been supportive of using the sensor technology since it was implemented on the BQE in 2023.
NYS Sen. Andrew Gounardes of Brooklyn passed the bill that enabled the DOT to use the system.
“This tech is helping us preserve the BQE as we work toward a long-term solution for the roadway’s future, and it makes sense to use it on other vital infrastructure across the state,” he said in a press release last year.
WIM utilizes roadway sensors to weigh passing vehicles in conjunction with adjacent cameras to capture the identifying information of overweight vehicles. Using this technology, those who violate the state maximum weight limit for their truck’s weight and vehicle class are issued a violation.
Truck weight limits are dictated by various factors, per a description on the city’s website.
Meanwhile, WIM legislation grants a 10% gross weight overage. So a truck with a maximum gross vehicle weight of 40 tons is allowed to weigh 44 tons before a violation is issued.
New York lawmakers authorized the expansion of WIM during this year’s legislative session. Other NYC DOT roadways that can now use the technology include the Greenpoint Avenue and Metropolitan Avenue Bridges over Newtown Creek, the Manahttan, Queensboro and Williamsburg Bridges, the Hamilton Avenue Bridge over the Gowanus Canal and the Third Avenue Bridge over the Harlem River.
The expansion of the enforcement on the BQE comes after a local environmental and neighborhood coalition sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul and city leaders urging them to scrap design plans that would essentially rebuild the heavily used and crumbling thoroughfare.
The DOT said there will be a public comment period during upcoming environmental reviews.
