Truckers driving vehicles more than 10 years old won’t be banned from the Port of Vancouver next month as originally planned.
The Rolling Truck Age Program, which was intended to help the port meet its climate targets, was intended to take effect on Feb. 1, but drew a furious backlash from the trucking industry.
“We have recently heard some concerns about our program start date from industry and Transport Canada, and we recognize that the pandemic, recent flooding, and on-going global supply chain issues may have created some short-term challenges for people looking to buy compliant trucks,” Vancouver Fraser Port Authority vice president Duncan Wilson said in a statement.
“We are thus postponing our program start date slightly, to provide some additional time and engagement opportunities for industry, and to hopefully mitigate some of those challenges.”
Wilson said the port authority would provide more details on the delay in the days to come.
According to the port, limiting access to vehicles 10 years old or younger would have cut particle emissions from the fleet by 93 per cent. It said 80 per cent of vehicles serving the port were already compliant with the policy.
The Port of Vancouver says it warned the industry in 2015 that the policy would take effect this year.
Truckers have said that the high cost and limited availability of newer vehicles would have left many of them unable to upgrade, and thus either out of a job or unable to work the port.
With 20 per cent of trucks still non-compliant and little opportunity to upgrade, Unifor said the policy would have resulted in a loss of hundreds of trucks servicing the port — further compounding B.C.’s already significant supply chain problems.
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