New York Heavy Haul: Long Island, New York City and Upstate
Arranged from East Northport, with the carrier matched to the load and every road owner's permit planned in
Quick answer
How do you book heavy haul trucking in New York?
Through a carrier with the right trailer and, for loads over 12 ft wide, NYS-certified escorts, with every road owner's permit in hand before the load moves. Local supply is thin: FMCSA lists 164 for-hire interstate carriers on Long Island and 117 in the five boroughs that report hauling machinery. HTS Logistics, a licensed broker in East Northport, books the carrier and coordinates the permits.
Updated November 2026 by the HTS Logistics broker team (FMCSA MC# 1178470).
Heavy haul arranged from Long Island
New York is home for us: we arrange heavy haul trucking from 78 Daly Rd in East Northport, Long Island. HTS Logistics is a licensed property broker (MC 1178470, USDOT 3535360), not a carrier, so for each load that starts or ends on Long Island, in the five boroughs or upstate we book a carrier that hauls under its own authority, and we coordinate the permits and escorts through it.
New York's carrier numbers need a second look. FMCSA's census lists 19,143 active New York carriers that report hauling machinery or large objects, second only to Texas, but New York requires USDOT numbers for many intrastate vehicles, so contractors and landscaping firms swell that count. Among for-hire interstate carriers, the ones that haul for others across state lines, New York has 1,552 machinery carriers and ranks 20th (data pulled October 17, 2026).
How do Long Island, New York City and upstate moves differ?
In who owns the road and what that road allows:
| Region | Corridors | What shapes the move |
|---|---|---|
| Long Island (Nassau and Suffolk) | I-495 (Long Island Expressway), NY 27, NY 25 | Parkways are closed to oversize and overweight vehicles, and some were built with low arch bridges to keep trucks off. Suffolk County requires its own permit on county roads once a vehicle passes 80 ft long or 12 ft wide. |
| New York City (five boroughs) | I-278, I-95, I-495, I-678 | New York City, the MTA and the Port Authority each set their own conditions for oversize loads, from bridge width limits to police escorts. |
| Hudson Valley and Capital Region | I-87 (Thruway), I-84, I-787 | The Thruway issues its own permit and caps most of its mainline, and the Cuomo Bridge, at 12 ft 6 in wide; Hudson River bridges run by the NYS Bridge Authority need their own permits. |
| Central and western New York | I-90 (Thruway), I-81, I-86 | Several cities, from Binghamton to Utica, apply rush-hour curfews to narrower loads than the state does. |
Long Island details, from the access highways to the bridge clearances, are on our pages for heavy equipment transport on Long Island and Long Island truck routes; the city's network and bridge-strike data are in our guide to NYC truck routes.
Local carrier supply is uneven. Of the 164 for-hire interstate machinery carriers on Long Island, 96 are in Suffolk and 68 in Nassau; the five boroughs have 117, led by Brooklyn (41) and Queens (36), with 8 in Manhattan. Those counts follow each carrier's own address, and carriers from New Jersey or upstate can take Long Island and city loads as well.
Where does imported machinery enter New York?
Census Bureau import data for 2025 (pulled October 17, 2026) shows three New York ports besides the Port of New York and New Jersey handling heavy equipment, and two of them are land crossings on the Canadian border.
| Port | Leading heavy-equipment imports, 2025 | How it arrives |
|---|---|---|
| Buffalo-Niagara Falls | Cranes (HS 8426): $68.1 million, No. 8 in the U.S. Forklifts and work trucks: $125.0 million, No. 14 | By land across the border |
| Champlain-Rouses Point | Large power transformers: $87.1 million, No. 12 Off-highway dump trucks: $26.0 million, No. 9 | By land across the border |
| Albany | $20.6 million of heavy equipment, including $16.4 million of large power transformers | By ship on the Hudson; 97.2% of vessel value outside containers |
| Port of New York and New Jersey | $1.60 billion of heavy equipment, 4.6% of U.S. imports | By ship; 10.6% of vessel value outside containers |
From Champlain the route south is I-87, the Adirondack Northway, which runs on the NYSDOT permit until the Thruway begins at Albany; from Buffalo, I-90 is the Thruway itself, with its own permit.
Albany's machinery comes off almost entirely outside containers, as project cargo. If a transformer weighs 200,000 lb or more, it is a New York superload (Type 1S), which brings a police escort and a bond of $10,000 to $50,000 depending on weight, on top of the certified escorts. How these units are prepared and moved is covered in power transformer shipping.
Downstate, the Port of New York and New Jersey is the gateway, and Newark ranked second in the U.S. in 2025 for piling, boring and other earthmoving machinery (HS 8430, $140.3 million) and fourth for liquid-filled transformers. Terminal pickups there are covered on our Port Newark and Elizabeth drayage page, and a machine that leaves Newark or Elizabeth over legal size also needs a New Jersey oversize permit for the New Jersey side of the trip.
Which common machines trip New York's thresholds?
Width over 12 ft and height of 14 ft are the lines that bring escorts in New York, and 16 ft of height makes a superload. This is how four machines from our OEM spec data land, measured as shipped on a deck about 2 ft high:
| Machine | Width / height on the trailer | What New York requires |
|---|---|---|
| Cat 320 excavator | 10 ft 5 in / about 12 ft 4 in | A trip permit and no escort. Over 10 ft wide, it falls under the Binghamton and Syracuse-area rush-hour curfews. |
| Grove RT765E-2 rough terrain crane | 10 ft 11 in / about 13 ft 10 in | A trip permit and no escort: it stays under 12 ft wide and 14 ft high. |
| Cat 336 excavator | 11 ft 9 in / about 14 ft 0 in | At 14 ft high, a NYS-certified escort with a height pole running about 3,000 ft ahead. |
| Cat D10 dozer, blade off | 12 ft 4 in / about 16 ft 3 in | An escort for width, and at 16 ft or more a superload: police escort, a route survey with utility arrangements and a $10,000 height bond. |
Shipping sizes for more excavators, dozers and cranes are on our excavator transport, bulldozer transport and crane transport pages.
New York permits: the short version
- Height is limited to 13 ft 6 in; width to 8 ft 6 in on Qualifying and Access Highways and 8 ft on New York City streets.
- A NYS-certified escort is required over 12 ft wide, and every escort must hold New York certification, whatever its home state.
- NYSDOT issues trip permits through HOOCS; the Thruway, New York City and some counties issue their own.
- NYSDOT charges $40 per single-trip permit, whatever the weight or distance.
Thruway, NYC, MTA and Port Authority details are in our New York oversize permit rules. A load that continues north on I-95 or east on I-84 also needs a Connecticut oversize permit, and every other state's limits and fees are in our oversize permit rules by state.
Questions about New York moves
Is HTS Logistics a New York company?
Yes. HTS Logistics LLC is based at 78 Daly Rd in East Northport (Long Island), NY 11731, and answers (631) 683-8275 around the clock, Monday to Saturday. It holds broker authority MC 1178470 (USDOT 3535360), granted in February 2021, and its team has heavy-haul experience going back to 2011. Carriers haul the loads; we book them and coordinate permits and escorts.
Can you pick up auction or rental equipment in New York?
Yes. We collect Ritchie Bros and IronPlanet auction purchases as well as Cat Rental machines. Send the lot or contract number, where the machine is and when the yard loads, and its make and model; the shipping size is then checked against New York's limits before a carrier is booked. If the route uses the Thruway, it needs a Thruway permit on top of the NYSDOT one.
Do you handle loads from Port Newark and Port Elizabeth?
Yes. We arrange container drayage out of Port Newark and Port Elizabeth, and heavy haul for machinery that leaves the port on a trailer. Most of the port's heavy equipment arrives in containers, so the first question is whether the machine is in a box, on a flat rack or rolling off a Ro-Ro vessel; that decides whether the pickup is a dray or an oversize move.
Can you move a machine that crosses the Canadian border into New York?
Yes. Send the crossing (Buffalo-Niagara Falls or Champlain-Rouses Point), the customs broker's contact, the expected release date and the machine's dimensions. The New York permit starts at the border, so the carrier is booked to arrive once the release is due rather than wait at the crossing.
What do you check before booking a carrier for a New York move?
Active FMCSA authority; $1 million each of auto and general liability, plus $100,000 of cargo insurance; and a trailer low enough to keep the machine under 13 ft 6 in where it can be done. Once a load passes 12 ft in width or reaches 14 ft in height, the escorts must hold NYS certification, earned through a New York DMV written test whatever their home state, so their certificates are checked too.
Sources
Facts on this page were checked in October 2026 against the sources below. Rules and rates change; we confirm current requirements on every move.
- FMCSA Company Census File (data.transportation.gov, az4n-8mr2) (pulled Oct 17, 2026; cargo types such as Machinery, Large Objects are self-reported on Form MCS-150)
- U.S. Census Bureau: Port Imports HS6 (December 2025 and August 2026 files) (general imports by port of unlading, customs value; pulled Oct 17, 2026; 2026 figures preliminary)
- NY VTL 385: Dimensions and weights of vehicles
- NYSDOT: Permit types and fees
- NYSDOT PERM 30: Information concerning special hauling permits (09/26)
- NYS Certified Escort Manual 2025
- NYSDOT: Superloads
- NYSDOT SH Notice 12-01: Use of parkways for routing
- NYS Thruway TAP-623: Special hauling permit guidelines
- Suffolk County: Hauling and oversized vehicle permit
- Caterpillar 320 hydraulic excavator technical specifications (AEXQ3758-01 (11-2025))
- Grove RT765E-2 product guide (Manitowoc part no. 10-009-2M-0721PDF)
- Caterpillar 336 hydraulic excavator technical specifications (AEXQ4077-01 (12-2025))
- Caterpillar D10 dozer technical specifications (AEXQ3209-03 (09-2026))
Ask for a New York heavy haul quote
Send the machine, both addresses and your dates, and tell us if the route touches a parkway, the Thruway or a New York City crossing; each one changes the permits.
- FMCSA-licensed property broker, MC# 1178470
- Permits, escorts and route surveys arranged for each move
- Carriers checked for authority, insurance and safety record
- Commercial shippers, dealers, contractors and auction buyers
Prefer to talk? Call (631) 683-8275.
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Keep reading
- NYC Truck RoutesNew York City's truck route network, banned parkways and where bridge strikes happen.
- Heavy Equipment TransportTrailer choice, width-by-width permit and escort triggers and shipping ranges for 47 machines, plus six checks before you book a hauler.
- Long Island Equipment TransportParkway bans, LIE truck routes, bridge clearances and NYC crossings for Nassau and Suffolk moves.
- New York Oversize PermitsNYSDOT, Thruway, NYC DOT, MTA and Port Authority rules for oversize loads in New York.
- Long Island Truck RoutesParkway bans, the lowest bridges on Long Island and the roads trucks can use, from federal bridge data.
- Heavy Haul TruckingOversize and overweight loads on RGN, lowboy, step deck and flatbed trailers across the 48 states.