GOSHEN — The city of Goshen wants to post new signs warning truckers that they are not welcome to drive on a section of Kercher Road in city limits.

Mayor Allan Kauffman approached the Elkhart County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday seeking permission to install the signs on C.R. 17 and C.R. 38. The city council passed an ordinance in November restricting commercial trucks with trailers larger than 40 feet on Kercher Road from S.R. 15 to the western limits of the city.

“The council’s concern and my concern is that we don’t want truckers to get to the Kercher Bridge with no warning that there’s a restriction in the city,” Kauffman explained.

The county’s highway department recently removed several “no thru trucks” signs that were posted near C.R. 38 from U.S. 33 to Goshen city limits and from C.R. 11 to city limits.

The city has not performed a traffic study since C.R. 17 was extended south to C.R. 38, but Kauffman said homeowners off of Kercher Road told him that truck traffic has gotten heavier. Commissioner Mike Yoder said the county plans to have funding in place next spring to extend C.R. 17 even farther south to C.R. 40.

Kauffman said he has told Goshen police to hold off on issuing traffic tickets to truckers on Kercher Road until the city has a chance to post warning signs about the restrictions.

“If you guys say, ‘No, you can’t put signs up,’ we will start ticketing and say the county wouldn’t let us warn you,” Kauffman told the commissioners.

Terry Rodino, county commissioners president, said he is not opposed to installing new signs but wanted to work with the county’s engineers to develop verbiage for the signs and determine where they would be posted.

“I just don’t want to put up the wrong sign in the wrong place with the wrong message and make the problem worse than it is already or worse than what it probably will be,” Rodino said.

The commissioners are expected consult with the highway department and have an answer for Kauffman within a week.