$1.2M in Infrared Sensors to Preserve Tonawanda, N.Y., Bridge

It’s the problem that became a punchline in the City of Tonawanda.

Why do tractor-trailers keep crashing into the Young Street railroad bridge, and why can’t more be done to stop this?

By this time next year, however, a high-tech system meant to prevent these crashes could be up and running.

The Young Street Bridge has been the scene of about 65 truck crashes since 2000, according to Tonawanda Police Department recordkeeping.

Officials say the problem is caused by drivers who follow GPS guidance without paying attention to signs warning their vehicles may not have enough room to make it safely under the bridge.

The bridge always wins. No one’s been hurt, but it can take hours to clear the scene and restore traffic flow.

Four years ago, city, state and federal officials announced a $1.2 million project that would use infrared sensors, to trigger signs with flashing lights, to detour drivers away from the bridge. Federal funds would cover its cost.

It has happened at least 64 times. Tractor trailers keep smashing into the CSX railroad bridge over Young Street in the City of Tonawanda. Officials have tried everything to try to warn truck drivers. Now, they say they have finally come up with a solution: laser beams.

City Engineer Jason LaMonaco said the design and approval process has now reached the point the city is ready to put the project out to bid as soon as this fall, with construction beginning next year.

A key step comes Tuesday night, when the Tonawanda Common Council is set to vote to free up city funds to advance the project while waiting for the federal aid to flow.

“Compared to the hits that we’ve had in the past, this should drastically reduce the amount of trucks hitting that bridge,” Tonawanda Mayor Bill Strassburg said Monday.

The Young Street railroad bridge in the City of Tonawanda, near Harriet Street, is regularly struck by tractor-trailers that are too tall to fit under it.

GPS-DRIVEN CRASHES
Crashes at the Young Street Bridge, near Harriet Street, have happened regularly in recent decades.

Signs warn truck drivers of the bridge’s height. The city in 2019 banned truck traffic on a section of Young Street leading to and from the bridge. And still the accidents keep happening.

The railroad bridge carries train traffic over Young Street and nearby Ellicott Creek in the city.

Now-retired Tonawanda Police Capt. Frederic Foels began documenting the crashes in 2000, as a lieutenant, recording at least 64 of them between that year and 2022.

After trucks have hit the railroad bridge over Young Street 64 times in 22 years, officials announced a $1.2 million project to try to prevent such crashes. City of Tonawanda Police Capt. Fred Foels has been documenting the crashes since 2000.

Data wasn’t immediately available for the years that followed, but Police Capt. Adam Kirisits on Monday said three additional crashes were reported in 2026, the most recent this month.

There are numerous signs on Young Street leading up to the bridge that warn truck drivers of the maximum height of 11 feet, 6 inches to pass safely under the span, which was built about 100 years ago.

Signs on Young Street in the City of Tonawanda warn tractor-trailer drivers of the low clearance, but dozens have crashed into the Young Street railroad bridge in recent decades.

The problem, city officials previously said, is that most modern tractor-trailers are 13 feet, 6 inches tall.

In a 2022 interview, Foels said commercial GPS software typically can alert drivers to roads with low structures, weight restrictions or other concerns.

Standard GPS service doesn’t necessarily include this information, Foels said then. And if truck drivers don’t pay attention to the warning signs along the road, they can crash into the bridge, which can rip open the top of their trailer like a can opener.

“Some of these truck drivers, we find a lot of them are from Canada that end up doing it, whether it’s a metric problem or a GPS problem,” said Strassburg, a former Tonawanda police chief.

SENSORS TRIGGER NEW WARNING
Authorities have tried several ways to prevent the truck crashes, as The Buffalo News previously reported, with limited success.

They tried banning trucks from Young Street. They engaged in a ticketing blitz. They put up more warning signs.

The city explored a more permanent solution to the problem — lowering the road under the bridge — but officials feared this would lead to flooding.

CSX has rejected calls to raise its bridge, a more permanent but far more expensive solution.

A CSX spokesperson said in an earlier email to The News that the company inspects the bridge after each crash, and “it remains 100% structurally sound and safe for train movements.” CSX added raising the bridge would be “a significant engineering project with impacts to numerous other bridges.”

By July 2022, then-Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo; Assembly Member Bill Conrad; and then-Tonawanda Mayor John White announced the federally funded, high-tech approach to the problem.

The system relies on infrared beams that would scan northbound and southbound Young Street traffic for vehicles that ride too high on the road to fit under the railroad bridge.

The sensors would trigger an electronic sign, with flashing lights, to alert drivers to avoid the low bridge in front of them and move instead to an alternate route, LaMonaco said.

“So, if they trigger the warning, and they’re paying attention and they see the sign, they can then follow the detour and not strike the bridge or not cause a closure,” he said.

The bridge is still there. The trucks are still too big for it.

The new system still relies on truck operators to watch where they’re going, of course.

“I think it’ll substantially reduce the accidents, but you still have the human component in here that you can’t control,” Strassburg said.

Conrad’s district office in the City of Tonawanda is just over Ellicott Creek from the Young Street Bridge. At least three times, he said, he’s heard the crash of a truck hitting the bridge from his office.

“You can put as many signs and alerts — it’s nice to see something early warning,” said Conrad, a Town of Tonawanda Democrat. “But deep down, I think the skeptic in me is going to say these problems are still going to continue until we rectify a lot of the GPS issues with the trucking routes with our Canadian traffic.”

BRIDGE FIX EYED FOR 2027
The past four years have seen the project go through the design and approval process, LaMonaco said.

It happened again: Truck hits Young Street railroad bridge in Tonawanda

For at least the 58th time since 2000, a truck crashed in the Young Street CSX railroad bridge in the City of Tonawanda. The latest truck-versus-bridge incident took place at about 4:15 p.m. Friday. The driver, Awil Amed, 59, of Columbus, Ohio, was hauling an empty trailer and headed to a warehouse in North Tonawanda when he smashed up.

Despite the changeover from the administration of President Joe Biden to that of President Trump, the federal funding for the work remains intact, officials said.

The project funding comes out of the National Highway Freight Program and is administered by the state Department of Transportation, according to Rob Davidson, senior adviser to Rep. Tim Kennedy, a Buffalo Democrat and Higgins’ successor.

“The New York State Department of Transportation is awaiting project documentation from the City of Tonawanda before the project can proceed to letting, which is tentatively scheduled for early next year,” Glenn Blain, a DOT spokesperson, wrote in an email that referred further questions to the city, the project lead agency.

Letting refers to the advertising, bid seeking, bid opening and bid acceptance process for a municipal construction project.

Federal- or state-funded projects typically require the municipality to put up its own funds, at first, to get work started before the grant money is paid back to the local government.

The Council is set to vote on a resolution Tuesday night to authorize this step in the process, with the city expecting full reimbursement for the project cost. Work should begin, and be finished, next year, LaMonaco said.

“This resolution is essentially authorizing, or opening up, the full amount that was earmarked for the project, so we can move into the construction phase,” he said.

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