Truck traffic subject of Lincoln meeting

The Lincoln Neighborhood Association will host a meeting about tractor-trailers on 39th Street at 7 p.m. March 12 at Lincoln Elementary School, 4200 Daniels St.

The meeting will be in the cafeteria, and the public is welcome.

Jason Seybold, chairman of the neighborhood’s transportation committee, said three members of the Vancouver City Council have agreed to attend and listen to concerns about increased truck traffic.

In October, the city issued a fact sheet about 39th Street, explaining its classification as an arterial that’s open to commercial and residential traffic.

The city anticipated traffic would increase on 39th Street following the November 2010 opening of a $19 million bridge that the state Department of Transportation built over railroad tracks at the 39th Street crossing. The city worked with the Lincoln Neighborhood Association to pay for $600,000 worth of upgrades on 39th Street, including signing, striping and pedestrian signal improvements.

Some residents want to ban tractor-trailers on 39th Street, but the arterial is one of only four roads — along with Mill Plain and Fourth Plain Boulevards and Northwest 78th Street — that provide access from Interstate 5 to the industrial area along Fruit Valley Road and the Port of Vancouver. The city could more easily ban trucks carrying oversize loads from 39th Street, but that would have little impact on reducing truck traffic, the city’s public works director has said.