Baltimore oversize route……

I have done many oversize loads.

Never has my permit taken me on a route through downtown of a big city.
(How can that even be the safest option?)

Most all the time it adds more miles to take me even further away around the city.

 

It's nuts to send an OD load through downtown on little roads and tight turns especially when interstates are right there.

Then again It's the Northeast. They just like to mess with drivers. Still makes no sense

 

Here's one I ran not long ago through Chicago at 12'W and we've run multiple loads this way at 14'W. This place is an old machine shop in a residential neighborhood. The streets are all one way into it with cars parked on both sides at 11' H tree limbs. There is no other way to access it. Due to construction on I-294 there is no alternate route around Chicago.

The section of the route that runs through downtown is maybe 5-10 miles but takes over 45 mins because dodging traffic and taking 2 lanes you can't accelerate fast enough between the lights to ever get more that 1 green at a time.

 

Another one through the middle of a lot of cities at 120' Long from 2017. Thank god we got the permit late in the day and California let me run at night. Would've been a nightmare during the day. A couple of the turns involved turning into oncoming lanes and then jumping the median with the tractor and jeep to get back into my lanes after the trailer cleared the corner.



The state Self Issue systems will absolutely run you through the middle of a city if it thinks you can clear the route and it's the shortest option. I've spent many hours on the phone with my permit services and state permit offices finding better routes than whatever their software spits out.

 

If you're picking up or delivering by downtown it's a different story and have less options.

Baltimore one looks like he's just going through.

 

Anything wrong with taking 695 the long ways westbound all the way around back to 95?

Extra 12 miles or something like that but a lot less risk and stress than a bunch of roads and turns in downtown Baltimore.