Feb. 23, 2017: The Main Street truck ban is moving forward. But to make it happen, Metuchen may have a long fight ahead.

Council will consider a resolution on the plan to ban trucks from Main Street, possibly in the first meeting in March.

Once Council approves the plan — which must provide an alternate route for trucks to use around Metuchen — it gets forwarded to Middlesex County and the state for approval.

At a meeting last year, Mayor Peter Cammarano said the ban would be based on certain weights and lengths, but would definitely include the kind of big tractor-trailers that keep getting stuck under Metuchen’s Truck Eating Bridge.

Communities impacted by the ban also have to see the plans; in this case, the only community impacted would be Edison, according to Cammarano.

Edison would not get veto power over the plans but the County would solicit the township’s input, Cammarano said.

Cammarano said in a follow-up call he would be able to disclose the alternative route soon.

There is no timeline for how long the process could take. “This is unknown territory,” Cammarano said. He said it could be six months or a year.

At the Council meeting Tuesday, Cammarano characterized the process as potentially being a “fight.” He said the fight would not be with Edison, but could come with trucking companies that use Metuchen as a shortcut.

The ban would not include delivery trucks, which have to be able to deliver to local businesses.

“We’ve been talking about this since I was a kid,” Cammarano said last year about trucks getting stuck under the Main Street bridge, which is owned by Amtrak. “This seems to be a reasonable way to prevent bridge strikes as well as get the trucks off of where they don’t belong. It’s been a long time coming.”