Blumenthal wants mapping apps to include truck bans, low bridge warnings

Mapping apps have become a handy tool for travelers, helping them find their way along unfamiliar routes, but one of Connecticut’s U.S. senators is taking a stand against one of the major downsides to such navigation apps.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is calling on technology giants including like Google and Apple to upgrade their mapping apps that use global positioning systems to keep commercial vehicles off limited-access highways such as the Merritt and Wilbur Cross parkways.

Blumenthal said he has sent letters to the chief executive officers of Google and Apple as well as those at other companies that use GPS for mapping apps. The apps currently don’t provide any notification about commercial traffic restrictions, such as it being banned from the Merritt and Wilbur Cross.

“It’s infuriating,” Blumenthal said of instances when commercial vehicles get stuck on the parkwayor hit an underpass. “This is a topic that is close to my heart because I’ve been stuck on the parkway when this happens. It makes traffic impenetrable because there is no way off these road if you’re caught between exits.”

The Merritt, also known as Route 15, stretches from Greenwich to the Housatonic River, where the highway become the Wilbur Cross in Milford.

Last year, there were 581 instances in which Connecticut State Police cited a commercial truck driver for using the Merritt or Wilbur Cross, he said. And Blumenthal said there were 21 occasions last year when a bridge along one of the two roads was stuck by a commercial vehicle.

State Trooper Curtis Booker said the penalty for commercial vehicles caught on the parkways is $92. Commercial truckers caught on the parkways frequently blame the mapping apps they use for not having warned them that commercial traffic is banned from the roads.

Blumenthal said state lawmakers need to consider increasing the penalty for the violation. More prominent signage at onramps along both parkways, similar to the ones used to notify drivers if they are getting on a highway traveling in the wrong direction, also would be helpful, he said.

Wes Haynes, executive director of the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, said the highway has 68 historic bridges, 35 of which are underpasses that carry the road beneath streets located above. An estimated 25 million vehicles travel on the Merritt annually, according to Haynes.

Responsible truckers use fee-based apps that do indicate the ban on commercial vehicles on both roads, he said. It is the free apps that are the problem, according to Haynes.

“Free app providers have shown no interest in voluntarily ensuring public safety by providing accurate information, adding warnings for users driving trucks,” he said.

The King Street bridge on the Merritt Parkway, located just over the state line from Greenwich, has been hit nearly 150 times in the past decade, according to DOT officials. One such incident occurred in late January.

While the DOT keeps records of when crews are dispatched to make repairs, an agency spokesman said there is no database that tracks whether bridge strikes have become more common as GPSenabled apps have proliferated.

The bridges on the Merritt were built between 1936 and 1940, while those on the Wilbur Cross were built between 1938 and 1942, according to Haynes.

“It’s a very special road,” he said. “All we’re trying to do is keep it safe.”