The damage estimate of 1.7 to 2.3 million dollars is way too low. There is probably that much damage just to 25 miles of Route 2. If that estimate goes to Washington the delegation will be laughed at.

this is one bill that should PASS. cars are expensive these days. i am about to replace a shock on my fairly new car due to my road. my house literally shakes when one of these trucks go by and the road is all dug up in one years time. driveway is sinking away from road edge due to the heavy traffic on the RIVER ROAD. why can't they use 302 which is built for heavy traffic...and loads! and the town hasn't even fixed a pot hole! wonder where our high taxes are going to!

This is such a no brainer..I can't beleive it has not been changed yet....sounds like to me that there is more Washington Politics going on than any f.....common sense being used.....Who has to grease who's butt to get this thing changed........follow the money.....someone is getting greased to keep this change...unchanged........who is it???????????????? dah...........

Oh, I know....call Susan Collins, she'll have a very long winded answer that will probably detour from the whole issue.....she talks in riddles...pin her down and ask her .......what the f........??????

Why aren't we making better us of the rail road?

The answer is simple: Lower the weight limit on our roads to match the federal weight limit. It would save taxpayer $$ and roads would last longer. Do you really want to subsidize the trucking industry to ruin your roads? The answer is simple lower the weight limit.

Hats off to coopah....sounds like that is the answer.....again, who's greasing who........follow the money.......Rep. Michaud is from the tree industry so you know he has that whole industry up his butt.......they won't go along with a lower weight limit...........ya think..........follow the money...dah...the more things change around here...the more no body wants to accept any change...........sooner or later...somebody is going to pay....and obviously no ne wants to give up a dime.......for common sense......

So if the weight limit is raised on the Highway to 100,000, and lowered to 80,000 on the other roads, where do 100,000 lbs. trucks go once they leave the highway? Or are all maine truck destinations at highway exits?

I have a better idea. Take Tractor Trailer trucks and put them on TRAINS. It's called intermodal and the rest of the entire country is doing it. If you simply want to divert the ware and tear from local roads to I-95 wont you have higher ware and tare costs on 95? You can put 100 trailers on 1 train and 200 containers on 1 train double stacked. You just took 100+ trucks off the major highways and local roads (Of course you have to drive the truck to the train yard and back).

I'm not sure why the forest industry constantly gets bashed in the most forested state (by % of total land) in the Union. Fuel taxes and other taxes, high insurance rates, diesel prices and high cost of equipment already create a burden on forestry companies. To ask them to consistently carry 20% less per load will merely create a higher cost per mile, which will eventually trickle down to the consumer in the form of higher cost of paper products, building products, etc. For comparison, 20% is approximately 1500 board feet of green hardwood logs, 3 cords of hardwood pulp, or 10,000 board feet of 2x6x12 softwood lumber dried to 12% moisture content. The weight of green wood and dried lumber significantly varies due to moisture content. Wood is one of the few renewable resources available to man and some of you, along with the global markets, are trying to drive the Maine forest industry further into the ground. The majority of Maine's public and privately held land is already open to tourism and recreationists. The two seem to coexist rather nicely with Maine's working forests. Some people (a Ms. Quimby comes to mind) envision Maine being one big park; if you believe converting Maine into one big park will create more dollars through tourism, then you are sadly mistaken. I'm an advocate for landowner rights, but there is a huge difference, in philosophy and dollars available to the economy, between conservation and preservation. Maine's forests are mostly managed in a sustainable manner and will provide forest products until the end of time, but only if we allow them to.

I do think that it is VERY STUPID that the only road that is built to support that kind of weight has a limit on it so that you can't use it, and do support lifting the federal limit, however the rail system MUST be better utilized as a long term solution. The transition away from the rail system was all well and good when diesel was $1.00/gallon, but fact of the matter is quite different these days.

We've been discussing this for years! No member of our delegation has or will change things that need to be changed. Roads continue to get ruined and once funding is found to repair them cost will be unbearable! Go Figure!!

Railroads really do make sense. Probably that's why they are tearing them up in Washington County to make bike trails. Way to go enviros!

Railroads make sense if you don't care when you want your product delivered or received. Something shipped from Chicago by rail can take two to three months if it doesn't get lost. By truck its truck it's two or three days. Railroads have died in this area because of their own incompetance

Given the climate and soil conditions that exist in Maine, there are NO highways, interstate or otherwise, that can be built at an affordable cost that can tolerate 100,000 lb trucks without suffering rapid deterioration. The Feds recognize this reality and is the precise reason why they take such a strong stand on the subject. Convincing engineering studies have shown that the relationship between truck weight and highway damage is far from linear. Once the 80,000 lb threshhold is crossed, the damage increases exponentially with vehicle weight such that the passage of ONE 100,000 lb truck at certain times of the year can cause as much pavement damage as the passage of 1200 passenger cars. This is why this kind of heavy freight belongs on the railroads. Period ! Much, much safer for all other users of the highway system --- five times more fuel effeciant on a per ton-mile basis --- 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emission measured on a ton-mile basis. Pretty damn significant benefits wouldn't you say? And NO, the writer of this comment has never been employed by the Railroad industry or any PR firm that lobbies for such interests. I have no financial interests in this debate whatsoever beyond those of every other non-commercial user of our Maine highways who are sick and tired of seeing our road system going to hell because of excessively heavy trucks that our highways --- interstate or otherwise ---simply cannot withstand.

I would like to see all trucks kept on I95 to, maybe then everyone would stop complaining about them for a day or two. Most of you have no idea what you are talking about. First of all if you take 100,000 lbs and distribute it between 22 tires(tractor with a tri-axle trailer) the actual force per square inch of roadway is not that much more than a GMC 3500 with a one ton load on it. Second, everyone needs everything yesterday and the only mode of transportation that can deliver is a truck, like it or not. I have seen many,many town and city streets that have never seen a truck that aren't fit to drive on. This time of year the frost seems to do just as much damage as a truck. You people do not realize how much money the state and fed get from trucks in the form of sales tax, excise tax, fuel tax, heavy use tax, property tax, and at the end of the year if you actually made a profit income tax. So dont tell me that the trucks dont pay more than their share. If any of you think you can survive without trucks you better think again,maybe you could live someplace where there are no trucks then we would all be happy.

Railroads are getting better in Maine. The St. Lawrence & Atlantic which has an existing intermodal terminal in Auburn can have its train in Chicago in 2 days with help from the Canadian National. For that matter they can go anywhere in the US or Canada. Pan Am is getting better and they run trains from Chicago to Ayer MA in 2 days.

Sure. Let's use railroads and put all the hard working truckers out of work. Great idea. NOT.

You still need truckers to get from rail yards to individual warehouses.

(1) It is true that trucks would still be needed to transfer freight from rail yards to individual warehouses, but this transfer doesn't need to take place at the rate of 100,000 lbs per load !

(2) Let the "hard working truckers" become "hard working railroad employees" instead. Nobody is suggesting that they should become jobless.

What? If you have to drive the trailers to the railroad, why not just continue with the long haul trucking? Youre still having to travel the trailers on the roads. The trailers arent going to magically appear next to the trains.

That's not such a bad idea as long as the trucks are sufficiently limited in weight to prevent them from tearing our highways all to hell !! Remember it's the weight limit issue that started this whole debate of trucks vs. trains.

For the most part you can get rail right up to the trailer yards or ports. The goal is to get trucks off local streets but also off roads in general. If you have 1 train hauling 200 containers of 100 Trailers then you just took 100-200 trucks off the road. That's only 1 train. So would you rather have 200 trucks driving up and down the highways pounds the streets and congesting traffic or would you rather put them on a train?