IRVING, NY – Add the voices of commercial truck drivers to those expressing frustration over a crumbling section of the New York State Thruway, which continues to deteriorate with no indication on when it will get fixed.
It is the three mile stretch which crosses the Seneca Nation of Indians’ Cattaraugus Reservation.
As bumpy a ride as this has become for most motorists over the past few years, it is much worse on 18 wheels, according to two truckers who spoke with WGRZ-TV.
“Driving through there…it'll knock the fillings out of your teeth," said Mark Pullutro, who traverses the torn up section of Thruway twice each weekday, hauling freight for UPS between Buffalo and Cleveland.
Fellow UPS trucker Frank Chiodo agreed.
“It's just terrible. I think it looks bad for the state...as a matter of fact, it looks like Little House on the Prairie...like you're driving through fields. That's what it's starting to feel like," Chiodo said.
It's gotten so bad, that some truckers are contemplating avoiding it all together
"We have also talked about getting off at the Eden Angola exit and going around and getting back on at Silver Creek,” confirmed Pullutro. “We don't know if our company would permit us to do that, but in time it's gonna have to be."
On its web site under future projects, the Thruway indicates plans to spend $30 million to repave this section, sometime this year.
However, neither the Thruway Authority, nor the Seneca Nation can report any progress toward talks that need to occur between them before the work can commence.
"That's the sad part. You can’t get an answer from either side and we're in the middle and are the ones suffering from it...they don't seem to care, either of them," Chiodo said.
On Friday, a Thruway crew could be seen patching potholes along the stretch, but neither trucker seemed impressed by the effort.
“They had five gallon pails, and they were literally dumping a substance into a hole and stamping on it with their feet," Pullutro said .
“It's gonna get cold again, and the plows are gonna go through there and just rip it up again," added Chiodo.
Both feel that with the money they, and their fellow motorists pay in tolls, the road ought not to be like this.
But beyond that, they’re now expressing a genuine concern for safety.
“When the snow comes, and you get in those ruts through there, you're gonna throw a vehicle or a car in there and kill somebody. Its' just getting horrible in there," Pullutro said.
Road repairs through Seneca territories are subject to long standing agreements with NY State, which among other things, requires a certain number of native workers be hired and grants a fee to the nation so it can inspect the work being done.
All of these things need to be negotiated, according to a Seneca source, who reminded that the two sides are currently locked in a dispute over casinos, which the source says may be impairing talks to get the road fixed.