How a tractor-trailer parking shortage threatens Thanksgiving traffic safety
It’s 2 a.m. on Interstate 70 near St. Louis, and an off-duty long-haul truck driver is asleep in his cab. His rig is parked beside two other tractor-trailers on the shoulder of the off-ramp to a rest stop, because there are no truck parking spaces left. Complying with federal regulations that limit a truck driver to operating 11 hours within each 14-hour on-duty shift left him no choice: Stop driving or break the law.
Suddenly, he’s airborne inside the cab. His truck has been hit by a Greyhound bus that slammed into the three rigs. Flames erupt. Passengers kick at the windows trying to escape. The truckers get some people out, but three passengers die, and 14 others are injured. It’s another brutal reminder of what happens when America’s commercial truck drivers have nowhere safe to park overnight.
There are no quick fixes to the nationwide shortage of access to safe, secure and accessible parking for commercial trucks.
“The lack of available truck parking is a perennial industry issue and one that is receiving increased attention at the state and federal levels,” according to the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), which estimates there is just one truck parking space nationally for every 11 truck drivers.
Drivers “out of hours” who find that nearby state-operated rest areas and privately owned truck stops are already full will pull off where they can. Their last-ditch spot for the night may be on a highway shoulder or along an on-ramp.
On high-traffic days and nights, like the Thanksgiving holidays, when AAA projects 81.8 million will travel at least 50 miles from their home, this poses safety risks to an increased number of Americans on the road. This year, 73 million Americans will drive to the Thanksgiving table – an increase of 1.3 million people over last year, according to AAA. And with a growing number of cars on the road during peak travel days between Tuesday, Nov. 25 and Monday, Dec. 1, comes heightened risk.
Why are so many tractor-trailers parked on the side of highways?
“The trucker’s got to get parked by a certain point in time. They can’t go on for 15 more minutes or 20 more miles, as they could when they recorded their hours in a paper logbook,” said Jim Park, a veteran owner-operator of chemical tankers and an award-winning trucking journalist. “With today’s mandated electronic logs, that flexibility is gone. The only fallback is to park where you can.”
On the other hand, Park told Straight Arrow News that if a driver “stops early because there is parking available, you cut your driving shift short. You essentially become less productive.”
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The median cost to construct one public truck parking space is estimated at $93,500, according to ATRI.
This affects both scheduling and earnings potential, which means “the pressure is on to find a spot as close to the actual end of their driving shift without going over,” said Park. “And, hopefully, get parked in a place that’s not going to compromise safety or anybody else’s use of the road.”
No make-do parking option is great — the risk of truckers being struck by other vehicles or becoming sitting targets for cargo thieves runs high. Trucks parked unsafely are also a significant safety risk to motorists, especially at night.
“When truck drivers don’t have a designated place to park, they end up parking on the side of the road, near exit ramps or elsewhere,” Todd Spencer, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), told SAN. “This isn’t safe for the driver, and it’s not safe for others on the road.”
As demand for e-commerce shipments grows, the need for truck parking will outpace the supply of public and private parking facilities in many regions. The shortage of truck parking is a national safety and security challenge for all road users, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).
“Truck drivers waste over an hour every day trying to secure parking, which really adds up,” said Spencer. “Federal law only allows a truck driver to be on the road for a limited amount of time, so a significant portion of a driver’s time on the road is completely wasted due to lack of parking. This leads to inefficiency in the supply chain, resulting in the slower delivery of goods to businesses and consumers.”
What would it cost to build more parking for truck drivers?
If the solution seems simple — just build more parking — the reality is more complicated. The median cost to construct one public truck parking space is estimated at $93,500, according to ATRI. Multiply that by the widely cited figure of a 40,000-space shortage, and the price tag is nearly $4 billion just for construction. That doesn’t cover ongoing maintenance and operations, which vary by region and represent significant recurring costs.
Then there are the public relations and legal costs that pile up when local communities mount pushback campaigns against more trucks driving and idling nearby, boosting traffic and noise that deflates property values. And in dense urban areas where truck parking is needed most, available land is scarce and expensive.
Technology is helping with the daunting task of finding safe and secure parking. ATRI found that 60% of states either provide a Truck Parking Information Management System (TPIMS) that delivers real-time parking information to truckers, or are planning to implement one.
The private sector is also stepping up. Long-haul truckers have been served for decades by privately owned truck stops that provide fuel, various services and secure overnight parking at locations sited near, but not on, Interstate highways. For example, TravelCenters of America Inc. (TA) recently announced it will add 1,600 new truck parking spaces. Truck stop chains may offer online reservations and apps that let truckers reserve parking in advance.
Truck stop operators provide 90% of the commercial truck parking in the U.S.
“Truck stops and travel centers are the home-away-from-home for truck drivers, providing all the amenities that drivers need, including fuel, food, and truck parking, when they stop for their federally mandated rest breaks,” Tiffany Wlazlowski Neuman, vice president of public affairs for NATSO, told SAN.
The association represents truck stops, travel centers, and off-highway fuel retailers. She added that “NATSO members seek to put in additional truck parking capacity wherever there is demand. The biggest challenges to increasing truck parking generally are zoning issues, permitting, and NIMBYism.”
What solutions are available to create safe truck parking?
But private enterprise can’t solve the crisis alone. The Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act (H.R. 1659), recently reintroduced to Congress, would authorize $755 million in competitive grant funding to states and local communities to expand commercial truck parking capacity nationwide. It is co-sponsored by Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming) and Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) and Representatives Mike Bost (R-Illinois) and Angie Craig (D-Minnesota).
“This bill has strong bipartisan support in Congress and would make America’s roads safer and our supply chain more efficient,” said OOIDA’s Spencer. “It would dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars to construct and expand truck parking capacity in areas in most need. This is a long-term problem that requires long-term solutions.”
While that legislation wends its way across Capitol Hill, truckers keep circling for spots they can’t find. So, they park where they can. And they hope when they wake up, they’ll be able to keep on trucking.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
