Truck objections curious

I compliment The Spokesman-Review for publishing news articles about the mega-truckloads of oil equipment, scheduled to be transported from Lewiston to Missoula. If you have not been following these events, you are missing a real legal drama.

The events have turned into a quagmire for the Idaho Transportation Department. Local residents and business owners along the highway are upset because each load will take up both lanes of the two-lane highway, creating a 20- to 45-minute moving roadblock. Their outcry seems to be working, because the scheduled loads are now backed up at the Port of Lewiston.

Personally, I find it curious that all this has become such a sensitive issue. Nonstandard truckloads should be reviewed by ITD permitting officials and engineers. If approved, then they should be scheduled for movement along the highway (public right-of-way) at a time that would least impact the public. In this case, it is Highway 12, which, by the way, was completed in 1962 to accommodate grain trucks from Montana to westward ports.

Curious that folks are not supporting haul trucks from Lewiston port to Montana. These are different times and different people.

Forrest Diehl

Spokane