A Houston city councilman hopes the new year will bring new life to his plan to require more permits for overweight trucks, the city’s KHOU Channel 11 News reported Thursday, Jan. 3.
“You’ve had an industry that’s gone basically unchecked, and here’s an opportunity for us to bring things into a closer process,” Houston City Councilman Adrian Garcia told the TV station. Funds generated by the permits would help repair streets torn up by heavy trucks, says Garcia, who told KHOU that opposition from the trucking industry, the Port of Houston and even the Texas Attorney General’s office has sent his plan packing in the past.
KHOU reports that another new approach has been included in a supplemental city budget: 11 new weight scales to replace aging equipment.
More scales will help officers weigh more trucks, an approach welcomed by the trucking industry, Texas Motor Transport Association spokesman John Esparza told KHOU. “We are certainly behind that,” Esparza says. “The more enforcement can be exerted on the bad actors, the better off we are as an industry.”
