Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="Railway Man"] No one other than the trucking industry claims that trucks pay their own way.  AASHTO does not.  No reputable highway engineer claims this.  Pavement damage varies as the 4th power of the axle loading.  Axle loadings are measured using the ESAL, or Equivalent Single Axle Load, an empirically determined formula.  An axle carrying 18,000 lbs. creates 3,000 times as much pavement wear as an axle carrying 2,000 lbs. See http://pavementinteractive.org/index.php?title=ESAL Now, if you want to make an economic argument that the fees, taxes, and economic activity created by trucks, subtracting the air emissions, congestion cost, delays to other vehicles, accident cost (heavy trucks are involved in one of every eight fatal accidents in the U.S.), are a net positive, and that no costs are externalized, be my guest.  RWM [/quote] You misread my posting.  I said that trucks cause more damage to roads than passenger cars.  So do most others with a knowledgable interest in transportation.  The question is whether they pay their fair share of the incremental costs.  There are studies that say they don't; there are also studies that say they do.  And not all of them were produced by the trucking industry.  Your reference does not say anything about costs.  It is basically an engineering discussion, which I appreciate more than you might imagine. This is not even relevant to my original position, which is that the investment in most forms of transport infrastructure in the U.S. have been paid for by the users.  The one exception is passenger rail, especially since 1971.  And this is the basis of my skeptism regarding high speed rail.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag