Ordinance Bans Heavy Trucks

The Palos Verdes Estates City Council has passed an urgency ordinance banning through traffic by heavy trucks in the city.

The measure takes effect immediately and will be supplanted in six weeks by a permanent ordinance that was also enacted Tuesday. The measures ban trucks weighing more than 6,000 pounds unless they are delivering or picking up materials in the city.

The council said the city’s streets are too narrow and too fragile for heavy truck traffic. “We don’t want to see trucks coming through the city from Rancho Palos Verdes projects over narrow streets and over streets that are being rehabilitated,” Mayor Ruth Gralow said.

The measure reflects concern in cities adjacent to Rancho Palos Verdes about heavy truck traffic from several large construction projects there. Officials said the projects could generate thousands of trips by trucks which haul fill on Palos Verdes Drives West and North to the Chandler Quarry in Rolling Hills Estates.

Palos Verdes Estates Police Chief Gary Johansen said signs announcing the ban will be posted within 10 days at all entrances to the city. Officers will issue warnings for “a few weeks” before issuing citations.

Neighboring Rolling Hills Estates has a similar restriction on truck traffic, which does not apply to Chandler trucks because the quarry is in that city. The council has discussed restricting truck traffic further. At its Aug. 8 meeting, it will receive an environmental impact report and a study from its traffic engineer on the effects of stiffening the ordinance.