PA Boroughs Association President to Congress: Put the Brakes on Heavier and Longer trucks
Local leader joins others from around the country in fight to preserve critical infrastructure
Local government and law enforcement leaders from Pennsylvania and across the country will be on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, March 26, to tell Congress they don’t want their communities to bear the burden of heavier and longer trucks on their roads. They are pushing back against corporate interests, advocating for federal legislation that would allow heavier and longer semi-trucks, putting the inevitably higher infrastructure costs on local taxpayers.
One of the leaders is Chris Cap, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs. Representing local governments across the state, Cap is on the front lines of ensuring that local roads maintained by borough governments across the Commonwealth remain safe and well-maintained.
“These trucks don’t just stay on the interstates,” said Cap. “Once they get off the highway, they end up on our borough and township roads, often to make deliveries— these are roads that were never designed to handle that kind of weight. And when they break down roads and bridges, it’s our communities and local taxpayers left footing the bill.”
Cap joins like-minded local government officials from other states in making the trip to Washington at the invitation of the Coalition Against Bigger Trucks (CABT), a nonprofit grassroots organization that for the past 30 years has successfully opposed federal legislation that would increase truck size and weight limits.
The 119th Congress will be reauthorizing the surface transportation authorization bill, also known as the highway bill, where the issue has already been raised in Congressional hearings this year.
The current bill expires in September 2026, and lawmakers are already holding hearings to determine transportation priorities, including whether to allow bigger trucks on the roads. The House Transportation & Infrastructure (T&I) Committee will hold a hearing related to the trucking industry on March 26, attended by local government leaders who want to ensure their voices are heard.
“As members of Congress consider the bigger truck issue, it is important they realize this isn’t just about corporate profits,” continued Cap. “It’s about protecting the infrastructure that supports our communities. When heavier trucks roll through, they leave behind crumbling roads and strained local budgets.”
Past proposals to raise truck size and weight limits, which will likely resurface, include:
- A 91,000-pound “pilot project” allowing states to authorize operation of these heavier trucks on roadways for up to 10 years, turning local roads into test tracks and forcing local governments to cover the costs of additional damage. The bill collects no infrastructure data.
- Provisions that would transfer responsibility for interstate weight limits to states, creating a patchwork of weight limits that force these heavier trucks onto local roads ill-equipped to handle them. This would allow any governor to increase truck weights in response to “unusual conditions”, effectively bypassing federal oversight.
Key Facts:
- According to an updated CABT study, 91,000-pound trucks would put over 1,036 locally owned bridges in Pennsylvania at risk, requiring replacement costs of more than $1.3 billion. These figures do not account for the shortened lifespans all bridges would face, and the cost would fall largely on local governments.
- Recently proposed heavier truck legislation does not include any additional funding for infrastructure.
- Rural communities, which rely on smaller roads and bridges, would bear the brunt of these increased costs.
