Canfield Township to enforce weight limits on roads

By ROBERT CONNELLY

rconnelly@vindy.com

CANFIELD

Several roads in Canfield Township will soon have weight-limit signs posted on them as the township cracks down on overweight loads.

Township Administrator Keith Rogers said this was started because a logger on Gibson Road recently was cited for having too much weight on his truck. His load was measured at more than 90,000 pounds, which is more than double the amount of weight that the road is built to hold. The designed limit is 34,000 pounds.

“Our roads weren’t designed for that weight. I mean, our roads just aren’t put in for that kind of weight like a state road is, like [Route] 224 is,” said Bob Burkett, Canfield Township assistant public-works foreman.

Fourteen roads will have signs installed on them over the coming weeks. One of those roads is Gibson Road, which the township took control of a few years ago from Mahoning County.

“Without [the limit] being posted, it’s an 80,000-pound weight limit,” Burkett said. “But the road was designed for 34,000.”

The township has had to work on Gibson Road frequently over the years. In fact, the Gibson Road overpass of the Ohio Turnpike will be replaced this spring.

Burkett clarified who is impacted by the new weight-limit restrictions.

“This won’t affect deliveries. The weight limit doesn’t affect a garbage truck, a concrete truck, a truck hauling in trusses. The weight limit is only for a business-type delivery,” he said.

Rogers and Burkett said that is primarily for companies that are clearing out trees and hauling the logs out. That is what the driver who had a 90,000-pound load was carrying at the time. The streets that will have weight-limit restrictions also were selected because those are areas of future expansion in township subdivisions.

The signs will be posted close to the main road so that drivers can be alerted about the limit as soon as possible before driving on the road.

“Once the road [signs] are posted, any contractor that is in there for a business will either have to haul the legal load or come in for a special hauling permit,” Rogers said. “Then that’s up to my trustees whether they want to allow special hauling permits.”

Burkett and Rogers said the man hauling 90,000 pounds was cited for a few hundred dollars since there was no posting that the limit was 80,000 pounds. Once the signs are posted, the fine goes into the thousands if someone were to drive on a street with more than 90,000 pounds on a 34,000-pound-limit road.