Aug 14, 2016 3 min read

It was a little surprising last week to hear Councilman Brian Tanner speak at length at a Waynesburg Borough Council meeting about problems caused by trucks passing through town.

Tanner cited instances of trucks speeding up High Street, weaving in and out of traffic and running red lights. He warned that sooner or later, someone was going to be killed.

Waynesburg Council has addressed the issue at numerous meetings in the past, but that was several years back when convoys of water trucks regularly ran through the borough servicing what then appeared to be an ever-growing natural gas boom.

But in the last few years, truck traffic seems to have fallen off as drilling has subsided because of low natural gas prices and a glut of gas on the market. That’s why we were so surprised by Tanner’s remarks.

Most people believe, however, that sooner or later the industry will rebound. In announcing their quarterly reports recently, a number of natural gas companies said they expect to begin ramping up drilling operations at least modestly.

Problems with truck traffic in the borough will return, motorists and residents will again complain and roads will begin to disintegrate as they did before from the heavy loads.

Council did make attempts to address the issue in the past. Meetings were held with state elected officials, the state Department of Transportation and the drilling companies. Borough police also responded with increased enforcement and even trained two officers to become certified in commercial traffic enforcement to inspect trucks passing through the borough for safety violations.

As drilling begins to increase, efforts to address these same issues, as Tanner said last week, will have to be revisited and police enforcement again stepped up. Mayor Duncan Berryman, in giving his report to council last week, did note that police recently increased traffic stops and speeding enforcement.

Waynesburg isn’t going to stop trucks from coming through town, not when its two main streets, High and Greene, are state highways.

It can lobby PennDOT to make sure the roads are maintained and talk to drilling companies about controlling their drivers, both of which were done in the past. It also can again increase police enforcement to at least make sure trucks are safe and drivers are obeying the law.

A bypass around Waynesburg, which had been planned 20 or 30 years ago but was ultimately halted, obviously would be ideal, but that now doesn’t appear to be on anyone’s radar screen.