It’s an increasingly common scenario: a trucker tries to get an 18-wheeler over the tortuous apogee of Route 108 through Smuggler’s Notch.
The truck gets stuck, and social media goes wild.
The Vermont Agency of Transportation stiffened the financial penalties this year for truckers who don’t heed the numerous warnings, starting at $1,000 for the first offense, up to $2,000 for repeat offenders.
Now, though, state officials are starting to see a new trend: tour buses trying to make it up and over the Notch.
This week, VTrans changed its flashing electronic signs on the Stowe and Cambridge sides of the Notch to read “No tractor trailers, no tour buses through the Notch.”
The warning comes after two tour buses got hung up in the S-turns at the top of the Notch. The first was a tour bus from Massachusetts with a hockey team on board. The bus got to a point in the Notch where it couldn’t budge, and Route 108 was shut for a few hours.
The tour bus operator’s public image wasn’t exactly burnished when he and the hockey team disembarked and posed for a photo that made the rounds on Facebook.
This past Sunday, another bus tried to take the shortcut between Stowe and Cambridge and got stuck, closing the road from 6:45 to 9:30 p.m.
The drivers didn’t incur those stiff fines handed out to truckers, though. While buses are not recommended vehicles for Notch passage, they aren’t prohibited, at least not yet.
Chris Cole, secretary of the state transportation agency, said the state has gone years without seeing buses stuck in the Notch, but two in one month is alarming, if it becomes a trend. He said the agency’s transportation management team is looking at outlawing buses, and that might include the yellow ones that take kids to and from school.
“Buses have been getting longer,” he said. “What might have been a tour bus that made it through 25 years ago might not make it through today.”
Cole is going to reach out to local lawmakers to gauge public opinion about extending the prohibition to vehicles other than tractor-trailer trucks.
As head of VTrans, he doesn’t need legislative approval; he can just make it so, and could drop the hammer before this winter. And he doubts there’s any desire on the part of Stowe or Cambridge to alter the road to allow truck traffic.
“The beauty of the Notch, and the type of road it is really lends itself more to a parkway than a state highway,” Cole said. “I’m sure Cambridge and Stowe would support keeping the Notch as it is.”
Record year?
Sunday marked the 10th time a vehicle has been reported stuck in the Notch this year. With at least another month before snowy conditions close the road for the winter, 2016 could turn out to be a banner year for Notch blockage.
Since 2009, Vermont State Police have dealt with 47 stuck vehicles. The lowest number was two in 2010; the highest was 10 in 2013.
The earliest extrication was May 22, in 2013. The latest in the calendar was last year, when a truck was pulled out Nov. 9.
Up until this year, if you were a truck driver, the largest hit to your wallet came from the wrecker crew that had to get up there and pull your rig out.
Most trucks get stuck coming up and over from the Cambridge side, which often necessitates a tow truck from Burlington. A DMV official, William Elovirta, told the Stowe Reporter last year that if the tow truck had to come from Chittenden County, “just to have the wrecker leave the yard would be five figures.”
The actual fine was only $162 until this year, when Vermont enacted the tougher fines.
“The increase in fines has also got the attention of the trucking industry, but now that we’re seeing more buses,” the state may have to address that too, Coles said.
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