After more than a year, Cambridge residents succeeded in passing a petition through City Council on Monday to ban trucks weighing over two and a half tons from driving through Cambridge at night.

The ban, which the council approved 9-0, will be enforced from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. to limit through traffic--trucks that originate in Cambridge or make deliveries here will still be able to travel at night.

Cantabrigians, angry because trucks use residential streets as shortcuts around congested highways, said they saw the unanimous council vote as a victory for the city.

"We pay taxes to build, support and maintain highways," said Riva Poor, a Cambridge resident. "Instead, they use our streets to save 15 minutes. We residents are paying for their savings."

However, both councillors and residents noted that enforcement may be an obstacle.

City Councillor Henrietta Davis said she thought that although the truck issue was an important one, she believes it will be difficult to implement the new law.

She also cited the possible threat of a lawsuit from truck companies.

"The goal is a really right one, and I wholly support the idea of banning trucks in Cambridge at night. I am not overly optimistic that it will work," Davis said.

G. Pebble Gifford, a Cambridge resident and president of the Harvard Square Defense Fund described the truck problem as a longstanding one for Cambridge.

"I think this is a citywide issue," she said. "As citizens, we have to battle for the right think. It's time to act on trucks if we are going to have a city that is livable in the future."

John E. Moot, a resident of Coolidge Hill Road, said he thought that aside from housing, traffic is the number one problem for Cambridge.

Bad traffic conditions, he said, could reduce property values and quality of living.

Moot described the truck problem as a political issue, saying that Cambridge needs an aggressive initiative to solve it.

Although this petition was introduced just a year ago, Moot said that Cantabrigians have been working for 10 years to solve the truck problem.

"The idea of changing the zoning ordinance only started in the last couple of years," he said. "Prior to changing the zoning ordinance they were trying to limit the trucks in other ways, but they were not successful."