NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: LOWER MANHATTAN; Big Trucks Take More Detours, and Residents Near Holland Tunnel Just Smile

The city never meant to ease the traffic snarl along Canal Street when it reopened the Holland Tunnel to just inbound trucks in late April. The tunnel had been closed to all traffic after Sept. 11. And in April, safety issues persuaded the Department of Transportation and the Port Authority to bar all trucks from leaving New York via the 8,558-foot-long tube. Small trucks can enter the tunnel from New Jersey, but they must have no more than three axles.

Transportation groups and residents have noticed a happy side effect to the truck restrictions -- the clearing up of Canal Street.

The historically clogged road that cuts across Manhattan still carries heavy traffic, but trucks are often scarce along its western half, near the tunnel entrance. In August 2001, 3,450 trucks entered the city each day through the tunnel; this August, 850 trucks did so each day, according to the Port Authority. In contrast, car traffic has remained steady, with 45,450 cars a day using the tunnel in August 2001 and 41,750 doing so last month.

Tom Cocola, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, said the decline in truck traffic on Canal Street has been so well received that the regulations have been extended indefinitely.

The news is especially sweet for John Kaehny, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a local watchdog organization. ''It's a ray of hope for the people who have lived in a traffic sewer for the past 15 years,'' Mr. Kaehny said. ''But it's also a small fix to a much older problem.'

He was speaking of how the restrictions have curbed a favorite delivery route, in which trucks leave the manufacturing plants of New Jersey, head east across the Staten Island bridges and into Brooklyn and Long Island.

After delivering their goods, the trucks could skirt bridge tolls by driving west across the Manhattan Bridge and Canal Street, finally leaving the city through the Holland Tunnel.

The route was cost-effective for truckers, but it had frustrated city residents for years. Last year, several groups called for, but failed to get, the city to place tolls on trucks entering and leaving Staten Island. Now, only westbound trucks leaving Brooklyn pay.

So, where have the trucks gone? Some use the Lincoln Tunnel. But most retrace their Staten Island steps and avoid Canal Street altogether, said Gerry Bogacz, a city planner with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council. KELLY CROW