With the help of volunteers that counted trucks and entered data, we are excited to share the results of our September industrial truck counts. Public consultation will soon begin on the City’s truck route review. We will be providing the results of our industrial truck counts, email friendlystreetshamilton@gmail.com if you want to be kept up to date with the truck route reboot group.
We counted 486 industrial trucks over two week days, Tuesday September 10th at Barton St and Victoria Ave, and Friday September 13th at Barton St and Wellington Ave. Of this total, 181 of these trucks were counted at Barton St and Victoria Ave, which is equal to one truck every 4 minutes. Meanwhile, 305 of these trucks were counted at Barton St and Wellington Ave, which is equal to one truck every 2.4 minutes.
Just like we saw during the summer counts, industrial truck traffic was highest between 9-11am at Barton St and Victoria Ave. Unlike last time, the second highest amount of truck traffic at this location occurred between 7-9am. At Barton St and Wellington Ave, industrial truck traffic peaked from 1-3pm, closely followed by 7-9am and 9-11am.
Given that students are back in school and are moving about in the morning and afternoon, these peaks in industrial truck traffic are particularly concerning for the safety of our younger community members. As mentioned in our last blog about truck counts, research shows that large diesel trucks are one of the worst culprits of transportation-based air pollution, which means that this traffic is concerning for both the safety and respiratory health of students. CBC Montreal recently put out an analysis that showed that 1/6 of schools are in proximity to polluted roads in Montreal, and we are especially concerned about the proximity of schools to truck routes in Hamilton.
Truck Types
We saw a lot of grain trucks at this industrial truck count. This was expected, as we anticipated that an increase would occur during potential harvest times. At Barton St and Wellington Ave, the largest percentage of trucks were actually grain trucks!
Grain Truck
With the addition of Parrish & Heimbecker at the north end of Wellington Ave, we have seen many of these trucks running through the downtown. Expect to see even more in the near future as their milling operations are planned to double.
Other Truck Types
Flatbed
As the name suggests, these trucks have flat beds that loads are strapped down to.
18-Wheeler
These are the typical large box-style transport trucks that you see, and generally have 2 wheels at the front, and 4 sets of four wheels behind this.
Tanker Truck
While these trucks can carry a variety of liquids and solids for local or industrial purposes, if you see one of these trucks with Parrish & Heimbecker written on it, it is most likely a shortcutting industrial truck.
Extended
These can be trucks of any of the discussed types, but have a trailer attachment that extends them. From our experience, these often have 30 or more wheels.
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