On Other Side of Country, Connecticut Feels California Highway Woes

Credit David Guo / Creative Commons

/

Creative Commons

It may be 2,500 miles from Connecticut to Southern California, but a highway problem there can still cause repercussions locally. 

When a section of Interstate 10 between Los Angeles and Phoenix collapsed during a storm last weekend, Mike Riley of the Motor Transportation Association of Connecticut said the trucking industry almost immediately began finding ways to cope.

"There’s significant delays that they are experiencing, and trucking companies have reassessed the way they are paying drivers, to make sure they give them money for the extra time," Riley said. "Customers are being told that the price of transportation of the goods are going to increase as a result of the delays that this -- this, it’s really a cut artery, are causing through the whole goods transportation system, not just in California, but all across the country."  

Riley said many trucks on Connecticut roads travel mostly in New England and New York, but a sizable portion travel coast to coast.

"When you look at studies that have been done, trucks that might be in Connecticut at a given point in time, three and four days later have made their way to the west coast," Riley said.

Watch videos of the collapsed highway below:

The California Department of Transportation provided a map showing the detour routes to avoid the problematic portion of highway:

Credit California Department of Transportation

The federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics said nearly 40 percent of the nation’s long-haul freight is carried on trucks -- and Riley said the truckers find a way. 

"It’s like water," Riley said. "It flows to the point of least resistance. When that bridge in Bridgeport burned a few years back, it stopped traffic, but within two hours there were trucks moving around it, to continue their travel."

California now hopes to have I-10 open with a single lane in each direction by the end of the week.