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Illinois To Increase Truck Tolls
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by 440cuin</i> <br /><br />Some truck drivers talk like they are experts in building and maintaining roadways. They are experts at managing a truck or a fleet but how would they know anything about the costs of hiway upkeep, they have nothing to do with that. The railroad companys know exactly what the costs are to build and maintain railroads because that is what they do. Of course not every railroad employee does and trainpersonel realy know nothing about costs realating to the equipement and fuel because they are just employees. <br />But I as an average citizen who may not even own or drive a car knows about as much about hiway building and maintanance costs as a profesional truck driver. <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />First off... I am not a trained "Expert" in the field of highway construction. However.. I have been driving long enough in the same areas of the country to actually witness almost day to day life spans of the highway. <br /> <br />6 years ago in Arkansas the interstates were beginning to crumble. These concrete plates were rocking whenever the rig crosses em. The water and cold weather does the rest. They have been for the last 3 years or so replacing the 1 foot thick concrete on gravel bed plate with Apsalt that is near 3 feet thick in some areas on rolled dirt with some gravel below. <br /> <br />Pennyslyvania (I can never spell it right) had I-81 that between Harrisburg PA to Scranton PA get completely demolished down to bare dirt on both directions, removed and a new interstate built with specialized methods of using concrete in better ways than just the old plates we all know and love. The concrete roads just got smashed over a long period of time and became dangerous to drive on as the plates were so bad that you would break leaf springs and axles as well as damage dash board componets and shake the freight. <br /> <br />As a side note this happened about the early 90's drivers were shifting from companies with older trucks to those who had "Air-Ride" eqiuiptment and "Conventonal" Tractors (Not Cab-over-engine COE) because the roads were so bad as to hurt you depending on what you drove. <br /> <br />Some states faced with crumbling concrete highways chose to simply apply a layer of blacktop over it to give a smooth ride. But unfortunately these same roads began to fail as the black top broke up due to the stressed concrete plates underneath. It was a "Pallative" solution to bad roads that only works temporarily. <br /> <br />I used to build driveways and these are not roads... however the material costs for concrete, aggregate and Blacktop (Apsalt) are almost very consistent if you built a small area it will cost a little bit. If you built a Interstate mile or 100, your costs will rise with the amount of material, men, equiptment and labor time needed to do the work. <br /> <br />Going to the subject of Toll roads, we in some cases plan on using them.. For example the PA turnpike... while this road is somewhat expensive to use in tolls, it is far more stable (Grades, tunnels traffic etc) than say Morgantown, Cumberland or State College and Allentown. Much safer in winter weather as well. We would use this Turnpike because during bad winter weather they do a good job keeping it safe. <br /> <br />I also wanted to touch on a observation that some toll bridges and roads have already long since paid for all the costs of orginal construction and in few cases the toll booths have been completely removed. Richmond VA is a example. There used to be Toll gates at the bottom of each hill every mile or so for 15-20 miles tolls were a nickel and a quarter depending on what you were driving. It was a "Pain" because of urban traffic under pressure to get somewhere and around these slow trucks struggling to stop and restart safely. I am glad that is over and done with. <br /> <br />Someone mentioned putting trucks on trains and letting the drivers ride up front. It is already been done with intermodal. You need a truck driver to get that box off the train and to a customer or onto a ship. I dont want to have to deal with any potentail railroad delays and besides the shipping and recievers's schedules are so tight and demanding we literally dont have time to load them trucks and take a seat up front. Sometimes we are already late leaving the shipper. <br /> <br />I have been told that you can empty a intermodal train in a bit over an hour. And reload it in a bit more time. several trains a day seems to be normal for a typical intermodal yard. <br /> <br />I dont manage fleets and I do not drive anymore and am glad for it. There is too much problems with road construction going on to even state with any certianty how long it will take you to get across I-80 in Ohio (Should be 232 miles at 5 hours) with construction recently that time could go to 8 or more hours from state line to state line. <br /> <br />To lighten the mood for those who are still here, we used to refer to the construction barrels as "Baby trucks" What usually happened is that one or two will get broken because they were not placed right or blown into traffic. The end result is several orange trucks on the other side passing by. This is the best way I can express it while protecting certain parties in the trucking world.
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