Trucking news and briefs for Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023:
Dollar Tree overhauling Arkansas DC
Dollar Tree, Inc. on Wednesday said its Family Dollar operations will return to West Memphis, Arkansas, with a fully reimagined and refreshed distribution center. The opening of the Family Dollar distribution center will create more than 300 new jobs for Arkansas workers initially, with plans to add more in the coming years.The West Memphis distribution center will have the capacity to serve up to 1,000 Family Dollar stores in the region. Combined, there are currently more than 200 Family Dollar and Dollar Tree stores in the state, employing more than 2,300 associates. Through 2026, the company plans to open dozens more Family Dollar and Dollar Tree stores in Arkansas.
The new 850,000-sq. ft. facility, scheduled to be fully operational by fall 2024, reflects more than $100 million in current and future investments.
“This is more than a reopening, it’s a transformation. Our West Memphis facility will have a full interior demolition and wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling rebuild,” said Mike Kindy, Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer, Dollar Tree, Inc. “This integral distribution center will drive industry-leading product safety standards, offer an excellent employment experience, strengthen our bonds with the community and better support our Family Dollar stores who depend on us throughout the region.”
Kentucky beefing up patrol of off-limits rural routes
Authorities in the state of Kentucky are directing truck drivers to stay off rural roads in the state, with new signs and officers patrolling, especially on state route 286, which crosses southern Ballard County and forms a cut-through between Wickliffe and Paducah. In the last three years there have been 119 crashes, 40 injury crashes and 5 fatality crashes along just more than 16 miles of that road, though only about 30 of the crashes involved a Class 8 truck. Of the 24 most recent crashes on KY 286, about half involved commercial trucks, according to Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC).
“NO TRUCK” signs have been installed at each end of KY 286 and at state highway intersections, and truck-enforcement officers have also stepped-up patrols and written numerous citations. KYTC recommends cross-country truckers traveling between Wickliffe and Paducah follow U.S. 60.
KYTC seemed to blame the "widespread use of cell phone GPS mapping apps created for passenger vehicles" for large trucks "ending up on inappropriate routes," and also steering truckers toward roads with low passes, like U.S. 45 or KY 307.
Texas, Mexico in dispute over border truck inspections
Mexico’s president intends to send a diplomatic note to the United States protesting Texas truck inspections that he says have delayed 19,000 trucks at the border.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to enforce additional truck inspections was “very irresponsible” and politically motivated.
Mexico’s national freight transport chamber said Sunday that the 19,000 rigs, carrying about $1.9 billion in goods, were delayed at the border due to Texas' enhanced inspections, which began again in September in an effort to “deter the placement of migrants and other smuggling activity," according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Mexican President López Obrador called Gov. Abbott “very irresponsible” for stepping up the inspections, according to the Associated Press.
“We are going to send a diplomatic note today to protest the Texas governor’s attitude of putting up obstacles to free transit on our borders without any reason, but rather with political motivations,” López Obrador said. “He is using the immigration issue to play politics.”
An influx of migrants crossing the border lately further complicates the issue, with Abbott and President Joe Biden far apart on efforts to resolve.
