N.B. extends weight-limit date; other provinces to follow suit
DIEPPE, N.B. — New Brunswick’s transportation ministry has followed Nova Scotia’s lead in extending the deadline for weight tolerance elimination as part of an agreement on uniform commercial vehicle weight limits.
Originally, all four Atlantic Provinces were ready for implementation on Jan. 1, 2006. But in December, Nova Scotia announced the removal of automatically applied weight tolerance would be delayed one year until January 1, 2007.
Responding to concerns from the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association, which argued that tolerance removal should be delayed across all Atlantic Provinces to minimize the burden on industry and carriers, New Brunswick recently announced it would delay implementation for two years.
across Atlantic provinces
According to APTA the 500 kg per axle weight tolerance will continue to be provided by until December 31, 2006. Other scheduled changes to the regulations, directly associated with the removal of automatically applied weight tolerance, will also be delayed until January 1, 2007.
“So we’re in harmonization with Nova Scotia for another year,” says APTA and Warren Transport president Vaughn Sturgeon in an interview with TodaysTrucking.com. “Now we’re in talks with that province about what they’re stand is — whether they’ll further match New Brunswick and what we’re going to do about 2007.”
The APTA is still awaiting word from PEI if that province plans to follow suit as well.
“We all run into all four Atlantic provinces, but want to ensure Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are in harmonization considering that they have the largest of the lanes,” Sturgeon says.
According to Sturgeon, the weight tolerance elimination was a growing concern for the struggling pulp and paper and wood bulk industry.
“This was going to put their prices up fairly substantially,” Sturgeon explains. “The thinking was that some of these industries have already had a rough couple years and (the government) didn’t want to be adding to that extra suffering. The feeling was they would put that off to help industry.”
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