The Onondaga Lake Parkway bridge keeps getting hit by trucks because it stands just 10 feet, 9 inches above a state road that commercial vehicles are banned from but routinely enter anyway, often guided by consumer GPS apps that ignore bridge heights. The wrought-iron railroad bridge, built in 1871, is owned by CSX Transportation, which has refused to let the state raise or replace it on anything other than CSX’s terms. That leaves New York stuck managing driver behavior on the road below with signs, sensors, lane narrowing, and, as of February 2026, an eight-point hit to the license of any driver who strikes it.
How Low the Bridge Is, and Why It’s Still There
The bridge was built in 1871 for the Syracuse Northern Railroad to cross the Oswego Canal. The canal was abandoned in 1918, its bed was converted into a scenic boulevard, and the Onondaga Lake Parkway was dedicated on July 10, 1932, with the railroad bridge kept in place as a road underpass.1Syracuse.com. The Untold History of CNY’s Notorious Parkway Bridge The structure has not been modified since 1871.
The clearance is 10 feet, 9 inches. The average tractor-trailer stands above 13 feet.2Syracuse.com. NY to Reduce Lanes on Onondaga Lake Parkway in New Attempt to Keep Trucks From Hitting Low Bridge CSX owns the bridge today and has consistently ruled out shutting down the freight line that uses it, which functions as a strategic rail gateway to the Canadian market.3Syracuse.com. NY Is Open to Replacing Onondaga Lake Parkway’s Low Railroad Bridge After Record Run of Crashes
Why Trucks Keep Hitting It
Collisions have been documented since at least 1952, when a truck hit the bridge after a repaving job raised the pavement by two inches and shrank the clearance further.1Syracuse.com. The Untold History of CNY’s Notorious Parkway Bridge A grand jury report later found that 53 vehicles struck the bridge between 1987 and 2010.4CBS News. Megabus Driver Acquitted in Deadly NY Crash
Then the pace jumped. New York State Department of Transportation data shows annual strike counts climbing to roughly 8 to 11 per year from 2020 through 2023, compared to 15 total across the nine years from 2011 to 2019.5Spectrum Local News. Could New York Pay to Raise Onondaga Lake Parkway Bridge Activations of the bridge’s early-warning detection system climbed with them, from 478 in 2017 to a record 1,502 in 2022, an average of four per day.3Syracuse.com. NY Is Open to Replacing Onondaga Lake Parkway’s Low Railroad Bridge After Record Run of Crashes Recent annual strike counts have eased: 11 in 2023, 7 in 2024, and 8 in 2025.6Office of the Governor. Governor Hochul Announces Completion of Safety Enhancement Project Along Onondaga Lake Parkway
A recurring factor is drivers’ reliance on consumer navigation apps like Google Maps, which do not account for bridge height restrictions. Onondaga County Sheriff’s officials and trucking advocates have noted that professional-grade GPS devices let drivers enter vehicle height and weight to be routed around low bridges, but many commercial drivers use personal devices instead. Efforts to get GPS companies to tag the parkway as a non-truck route have been initiated but have not resolved the problem.7CNY Central. Could This Simple Switch Stop Trucks From Crashing Into the Onondaga Lake Parkway Bridge
Commercial traffic is not supposed to be on the road at all. Effective December 9, 2011, NYSDOT banned all vehicles with commercial license plates from the Onondaga Lake Parkway between I-81 and the Village of Liverpool. The only exception is for commercial vehicles under 10 feet, 9 inches making deliveries along the parkway itself; emergency vehicles, school buses, and tow trucks are also exempt.8NYSDOT. Onondaga Lake Parkway Commercial Vehicle Exclusion
The pattern is not unique to this bridge. New York State experiences roughly 200 bridge strikes by over-height trucks each year, with most occurring at a small number of repeatedly hit low-clearance bridges over parkways and local roads where truck traffic is already prohibited.9U.S. Department of Transportation. Strikes on Low Clearance Bridges by Over-Height Trucks in New York State
Why the Bridge Hasn’t Been Raised or Replaced
The central obstacle is a jurisdictional split. CSX owns the bridge, and the state has no authority to alter, raise, or replace it without the railroad’s permission. NYSDOT holds jurisdiction over the road below and the surrounding safety infrastructure. CSX has called the bridge a “highway issue” and the state’s responsibility, while telling the state it would permit modifications only if New York paid the full cost of meeting current CSX engineering standards.3Syracuse.com. NY Is Open to Replacing Onondaga Lake Parkway’s Low Railroad Bridge After Record Run of Crashes
A May 2011 NYSDOT scoping report evaluated and rejected the structural fixes most people suggest. Raising the bridge would require reconstructing the rail approaches and interrupting railroad traffic during construction, a condition CSX refused, and would significantly affect surrounding park resources. Lowering the road was rejected because of flooding and icing from the required drainage pump system, blowing and drifting snow accumulating in a depressed roadway, contaminated soil and groundwater needing special handling, and ongoing annual maintenance estimated at $1.8 million.10NYSDOT. Onondaga Lake Parkway Traffic Safety Study A new fixed bridge was estimated at $20 million, and a movable drawbridge at more than that.3Syracuse.com. NY Is Open to Replacing Onondaga Lake Parkway’s Low Railroad Bridge After Record Run of Crashes
By 2023, as strikes surged, the state reversed its longstanding position that taxpayer money should not go toward improvements to a privately owned bridge. NYSDOT Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez said the department was open to using public funds and that “nothing is off the table.”5Spectrum Local News. Could New York Pay to Raise Onondaga Lake Parkway Bridge No construction project to raise or replace the bridge has moved forward since. Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli has said there is “nothing more the state can do” beyond the existing warning infrastructure, given that commercial traffic is already prohibited.11CNY Central. The Parkway Bridge: A Comprehensive History of the Infamous Syracuse Bridge
What the State Has Done Instead
Unable to modify the bridge, the state has layered countermeasure after countermeasure onto the road leading to it. By 2023, nearly 50 individual safety devices were in place along the parkway, including signs, flashing beacons, pavement markings, variable message signs, and an electronic over-height vehicle detection system.12NYSDOT. Onondaga Lake Parkway Safety Enhancements At least 16 warning signs had already been posted by 1972; the system has grown steadily since.1Syracuse.com. The Untold History of CNY’s Notorious Parkway Bridge
The original electronic detection system, installed in 2011, used two lasers and a roadway detector to trigger flashing “Over-height Vehicle Detected” and “Stop Now” signs when a tall vehicle approached, and it alerted a 24-hour NYSDOT command center at the same time.1Syracuse.com. The Untold History of CNY’s Notorious Parkway Bridge In September 2023, the parkway was narrowed to a single lane in each direction for 1,200 feet on either side of the bridge, using reflective devices to slow traffic and give drivers more time to react.13Office of the Governor. Governor Hochul Announces New Measures to Mitigate Bridge Strikes in Upstate New York
On February 12, 2026, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the completion of a $700,000 safety enhancement project begun in June 2023.14Syracuse.com. Large Box Truck Hits Onondaga Lake Parkway Bridge Early Friday The upgrades added a second set of detection sensors in both directions, requiring a vehicle to break two beams paired with pavement loops to filter out false alarms from birds and snow, along with new 36-by-36-inch LED blank-out signs displaying a “No Truck” symbol when triggered, and two permanent full-color variable message sign boards in each direction.6Office of the Governor. Governor Hochul Announces Completion of Safety Enhancement Project Along Onondaga Lake Parkway
The Eight-Point License Penalty
Effective February 16, 2026, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles imposed an eight-point penalty on the driving records of operators who strike bridges or drive over-height vehicles in violation of regulations. The change came through regulatory amendments under the State Administrative Procedure Act, following Governor Hochul’s 2023 State of the State proposal.15NYS DMV. DMV Reminds New Yorkers of Updated Point Values for Driving Violations Under New York DMV rules, accumulating 10 points within 24 months triggers license suspension, so a single strike now puts a driver within two points of losing driving privileges.16Syracuse.com. Truck Driver Who Crashed Into Onondaga Lake Parkway Bridge Didn’t See All the Warning Signs
The 2010 Megabus Crash
The deadliest incident at the bridge, and the reason much of the current safety architecture exists, happened on September 11, 2010, when a double-decker Megabus traveling from Philadelphia to Toronto struck the bridge at about 2:30 a.m. The bus stood 13 feet, 1 inch tall and was carrying 29 passengers when it hit the 10-foot, 9-inch structure.17The Philadelphia Inquirer. Driver of Deadly Megabus Crash Near Syracuse, N.Y., Is Acquitted of Homicide Charges Four passengers were killed: Deanna Armstrong, 18; Kevin Coffey, 19; Ashwani Mehta, 34; and the Rev. Benjamin Okorie, 35. Twenty others were injured.11CNY Central. The Parkway Bridge: A Comprehensive History of the Infamous Syracuse Bridge
The driver, John Tomaszewski, 60, of Yardville, New Jersey, was charged with four counts of criminally negligent homicide and one count of failure to obey a traffic control device. Prosecutors argued he ignored 13 low-bridge warning signs while following a personal GPS device. His attorney countered that Tomaszewski had limited experience, was driving the parkway for the first time, and that state officials and CSX shared responsibility for failing to adequately address the known danger. In a bench trial before Onondaga County Court Judge Anthony Aloi, Tomaszewski was acquitted of all charges on February 28, 2012.4CBS News. Megabus Driver Acquitted in Deadly NY Crash
Strikes Continue in 2026
The new system has not stopped the hits. Less than two months after it went live, a box truck driven by Shawn Williams struck the bridge on March 26, 2026. Williams told authorities he did not see the warning signs. The top of his truck was damaged, the bridge was not, and he was issued three citations for failure to obey a traffic control device.16Syracuse.com. Truck Driver Who Crashed Into Onondaga Lake Parkway Bridge Didn’t See All the Warning Signs
On May 24, 2026, a concrete truck struck the bridge around 8:30 a.m. The Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office issued the driver 10 citations for failing to obey traffic control devices, reflecting the number of warning signs on the approach.18LocalSYR. Driver Cited 10 Times After Hitting Onondaga Lake Bridge On June 5, 2026, a large box truck operated by Timothy Stephens, 33, of Columbus, Indiana, hit the bridge around 3 a.m. The truck did not become stuck and continued past the bridge before stopping. No injuries were reported, and Stephens received traffic tickets for failure to obey a traffic signal device.14Syracuse.com. Large Box Truck Hits Onondaga Lake Parkway Bridge Early Friday
More than 150 years after the bridge was built to let trains cross a canal that no longer exists, the question of what to do about it remains open. The ban is in place, the signs are up, the sensors have been doubled, the lanes have been narrowed, and the license penalty has teeth. Trucks still arrive, and the bridge is still 10 feet, 9 inches tall.