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APRIL/MAY | TCA 2018
Legislative Update
Parking Safely
By Lyndon Finney
he story is sad, but it probably bears repeating given
the importance of the nature of this article.
Jason Rivenburg, a part-time trucker for VanderVeen
Trucking in Delanson, New York, was hauling organic
milk in March 2009.
His 11-hour clock was about to end, but he couldn’t
find a parking place at a well-lighted truck stop or
rest stop with truck parking facilities, so he pulled into
an abandoned gas station in Calhoun County, South
Carolina.
There on the night of March 5, Jason was murdered
for the $7 he had in his pocket by Willie Pelzer, who
authorities say stalked and then ambushed Rivenburg.
Prosecutors said Pelzer was looking for money to buy
drugs.
Despite the horrific nature of the crime, the case
didn’t gain much attention in the public or trade
media until Riverburg’s wife Hope caught the ear of
two Congressmen from New York — Rep. Paul Tanko,
D-N.Y, and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y, who — about
two months after the crime — introduced companion
bills in the House and Senate directing the Secretary
of Transportation to: (1) implement a pilot program
to allocate funds to states, metropolitan planning
organizations, and local governments that submit an
application approved by the secretary for eligible projects
to establish long-term parking facilities for commercial
motor vehicles (trucks) on the National Highway System;
and (2) give priority to applicants that demonstrate a
severe shortage of truck parking capacity and whose
proposed projects are likely to have positive effects on
highway safety, traffic congestion, or air quality.
Neither the House nor the Senate ever voted on the
bill.
There was never an explanation why.
Perhaps it was a lack of knowledge on the part
of lawmakers in both the Senate and House on the
seriousness of a truck parking shortage.
Maybe it was because Tanko and Schumer failed to
find a measure on which to attach their bill because it
is well known that many important pieces of legislation
are not strong enough to go it alone and are attached to
the coattails of a sure-fire bill such as an appropriations
measure.
Tanko and Schumer introduced Jason’s Law again in
2011 and this time they attached Jason’s Law to the
long-awaited transportation bill, which came to be known
as MAP-21, an acronym for Moving Ahead for Progress in
the 21st Century Act.
“It is the sense of Congress that it is a national
priority to address projects under this section for the
shortage of long-term parking for commercial motor
vehicles on the National Highway System to improve
the safety of motorized and nonmotorized users and for
commercial motor vehicle operators,” the bill reads.
“Jason’s Law” created a pilot program that would
make $120 million available in the form of grants ($20
million per year) for local governments and private
companies to address the shortage of parking for
commercial vehicles on the National Highway System.
As a result of the passage of Jason’s Law, the
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued its
congressionally mandated survey (Jason’s Law Parking
Survey Results and Comparative Analysis), which bluntly
showed truck parking to be a serious problem in the
United States.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and several
stakeholder organizations then established the
National Coalition of Truck Parking whose membership
includes the FHWA, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration, DOT’s Maritime Administration,
the American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the American
Trucking Associations, the Commercial Vehicle Safety
Alliance (CVSA), NATSO (which represents American’s
travel plazas and truck stops), and the Owner-Operator
Independent Drivers Association.
6 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2018