MA Chiefs Concerned About Tanker Traffic Hazard

From the Boston Herald:

After another massive North Shore tanker fire, residents and fire officials say it’s time for the state to step in with new measures to control the truck traffic from local fuel facilities before more people are killed.

“We need to have just one lane for all those trucks, and limit them to 35 miles an hour,” said Allan Huberman, as he lifted debris from his fire-scorched family greenhouse business yesterday. “We’ve had four or five major accidents on that road, just in the last couple of years. People are going too fast, and you can’t, not with all that on-and-off traffic.”

“It’s a serious concern of ours and has been forever,” Saugus fire Chief James Blanchard said about the fuel trucks moving through densely populated areas. His fire crews evacuated 120 people from their homes early Saturday morning.

Blanchard said drug testing of drivers and cutting back on rotaries had helped, but now it may be time for other changes, such as widening sections of Route 1.

In nearby Everett, fire Chief David Butler agreed something has to change. Overturned tanker fires hit Revere’s Brown Circle in 2009 and in Everett in 2007.

“We’ve got a lot of this coming out of my city, and we’re not getting any extra help because of it,” Butler said. “There is an unfair strain put on some of these cities.”