There was a discussion a couple of years ago around gasoline taxes and how they are supposed to pay for roadway maintenance. The question came up about EVs. There were discussions about how to include EVs in the taxation system so they would pay for their fair share of the road. One of the options was to impose a tax attached to your vehicle registration based upon the weight of the vehicle. The greater the weight, the more wear and tear it produces on the road surface. This might be one solution to the barrier problem, namely moving the extra cost to the reason for the extra cost.
ah yes, another anti-environment tax. More barriers to fossil-fuel free adoption. As you would expect, Mississippi already has this tax. Don’t be like Mississippi.
The “problem” with that tax is that if it’s applied fairly, it gets very big very fast. The damage to the road goes up with weight, but not linearly. Not a square factor, either. Not even cube. It’s to the fourth power.
Start applying that to long haul trucks and the whole industry will be bankrupt in a month. The implication being that we are all subsidizing that industry with taxes on roads. Including that one trucker with a “who is John Galt?” sticker on the back.
That said, this is also a very good argument for improving cargo trains to the point where most long haul trucking goes away.
So? That money is still coming from somewhere. If the freight industry can’t afford to pay then it means we are subsiding them CURRENTLY. They by the very nature of capitalism deserve to go out of business
Only if rail can figure out their shit and hire enough workers and give them all time off. Too many train derailments from precision scheduled railroading.
Actually maintained rail shouldn’t have this problem, but the private companies like Norfolk Southern spend the minimum amount to keep them operational.
With a budget just a fraction of highway upkeep and expansion they should be able to be kept in good repair.
Neither should lots of short haul trucking, more specifically drayage trucking, that industry sucks. We probably need to move more towards vans and stuff.
As a truck driver, I would like to ask, how would you acquire all the “stuff” you have bought over the years? I am reasonably sure most of it was not produced locally to you. And the raw materials almost certainly aren’t locally sourced. Trucking and logistics generally has its issues, and you only have glimpsed a fraction of them, but it is absolutely necessary for modern society. Unless you’re proposing we kill off 2/3rds of humanity and go back to hunter-gatherer. Not a fan of that idea.
Even if we put 100% of freight on trains, and expand the existing rail network 10x, the need for trucking infrastructure would not decrease by any significant amount. Trains can’t stop at every single business that needs freight, and trucks are still needed to get that freight from the railport to its destination (this is called “last mile” freight, but it can be up to a few hundred miles depending on where the nearest logistics hub is compared to the destination).
By the way, we already use trains significantly. Look up the intermodal logistics network. The general concept is smaller trucks pick up freight from different businesses, consolidate it in a single warehouse, then the freight gets put on full size trucks to move to the nearest railport and the trailer is loaded on a train which carries it as far as possible, then the reverse happens at the other end. The vast majority of freight movement uses this method.
My point is that long haul is a very small minority of long-distance freight. Anything that can fly, does. Anything else will go on a train if a route exists (this is where rail expansion would help, but there are other problems with that we won’t address). The only freight that travels long-distance is truckloads that can’t fly (hazardous goods that are dangerous to put on a plane, or stuff like certain foods that could be damaged by the pressure changes in flight) AND doesn’t have a good train route to take. My cross-country routes were always stuff like fresh produce or other foods that would be damaged by the pressure. Everything else would travel a few states, but never from one coast to the other.
And you can’t put 3 full pallets on a bike, you’ll always need trucks to some extent.
But if the true costs were quantized in the formula and not just externalized maybe it would suddenly make more sense. After all, in the end, society pays for it no matter what.
The cost has already been paid. Even small farming communities have rail line access that’s mostly been abandoned because the line owners switched business models.
As for flexibility, again, that’s mostly an issue with how rail line management has evolved. From shorter more frequent trains to ultra long infrequent trains. Mostly to cut the cost of staffing.
The solution is simple, nationalize the rail service. Put it under the USPS and have them figure out scheduling to optimize the speed of goods shipping.
The current state of the rail system is entirely due to the monopolistic nature of ownership. The incentive is to increase prices as much as possible while shipping to the fewest stops possible. Profit motives are in direct conflict with generalized shipping.
The reason trunking works today is the public nature of roads. Well, why shouldn’t rail lines be equally public? We practically gave the property away to the current rail owners with the notion it was for the public good… They’ve failed that.
Tax tire sales. Heavy cars have more expensive tire s or tires that need to be replaced more often. Scales adequately for road maintenance because heavy vehicles cause more wear on roads.
Taking a guess, but it would lead to people replacing their tires less often, making cars more prone to accidents, and thus probably being counterproductive and more dangerous.
It should be linked to what a driver has to do (e.g. registration) so they can’t try to minimize the cost by delaying it, especially with maintenance.
Tire inspection is still part of vehicle registration inspections. You can’t delay more than a year, and states can always require a tire change within a certain % of being totally worn out if having tires within x-% is showing evidence of causing more accidents.
Unless the argument is that any additional cost will prevent people from performing maintenance. Like, “gas prices can’t go up because people will stop buying gas”. Or “if you make registration more complicated, people won’t register their cars”.
Taxes in the US also have a precedence of decreasing as you get into higher values. There is nothing saying taxes can’t be a higher % on low quality tires. Buy a better tire that last longer, lower percentage tax tier. The point of taxation is to deter behavior you don’t want while recouping the cost of operation over time. Cheap tires that only last 1k miles can be taxed at a much higher % than those rated at 50 or 100k miles. We do that shit all the time.
Not all states have regular inspection requirements. Some are only every couple of years. But even if they did all implement something, you still would be encouraging people to wait in until the last possible moment to do it, which might decrease the amount it increases the risk, but it would still do so.
I think you make want to go the other way. Making tires more expensive wont make people choose smaller cars, they will choose worse tires. And then they will crash into you because they cant stop.
They’ll still have to replace them more often or won’t be able to drive their vehicles or pass a state inspection to get their annual registration completed unless their car is road-worthy, thus costing them more money in tickets and remedies of said ticket.
Sure, but the problem is that you dont want to make safety equipment more expensive, as it encourages cheaping out and cutting corners. People already buy cheap and nasty tires that dont grip well or stop well (but still meet roadworthiness), its best to avoid further encouraging that.
There is no reason not to just directly tax against the weight of the car, as defined by the manufacturer. There already is a yearly rego payments, just scale that directly against weight.
A direct tax is also clear and obvious. If someone has a large car, the rego weight tax will clearly show they are paying more. Making tires more expensive just gets rolled into the price of the tire, which are already moderately expensive, so its easier to just rationalise it and ignore it.
There was a discussion a couple of years ago around gasoline taxes and how they are supposed to pay for roadway maintenance. The question came up about EVs. There were discussions about how to include EVs in the taxation system so they would pay for their fair share of the road. One of the options was to impose a tax attached to your vehicle registration based upon the weight of the vehicle. The greater the weight, the more wear and tear it produces on the road surface. This might be one solution to the barrier problem, namely moving the extra cost to the reason for the extra cost.
A more logical way would be to tax a car based on how many km/miles it travels in a year, at least partially.
I bet that my 1.5 tons car travelling 10.000 Km/year ruins the street a lot less than my neighbor’s 1 tons car that travel 30.000 Km/year
ah yes, another anti-environment tax. More barriers to fossil-fuel free adoption. As you would expect, Mississippi already has this tax. Don’t be like Mississippi.
Wouldn’t be anti-environmental… it would be for all vehicles including ICE and commercial, as well.
The “problem” with that tax is that if it’s applied fairly, it gets very big very fast. The damage to the road goes up with weight, but not linearly. Not a square factor, either. Not even cube. It’s to the fourth power.
Start applying that to long haul trucks and the whole industry will be bankrupt in a month. The implication being that we are all subsidizing that industry with taxes on roads. Including that one trucker with a “who is John Galt?” sticker on the back.
That said, this is also a very good argument for improving cargo trains to the point where most long haul trucking goes away.
So? That money is still coming from somewhere. If the freight industry can’t afford to pay then it means we are subsiding them CURRENTLY. They by the very nature of capitalism deserve to go out of business
True but unfettered capitalism is a terrible model.
So much of that freight should be moved by rail.
Tax based on weight to 4th power would work if we nationalized railways like roads.
Only if rail can figure out their shit and hire enough workers and give them all time off. Too many train derailments from precision scheduled railroading.
Actually maintained rail shouldn’t have this problem, but the private companies like Norfolk Southern spend the minimum amount to keep them operational.
With a budget just a fraction of highway upkeep and expansion they should be able to be kept in good repair.
Why bother with maintenance when the EPA handles the cleanup?
Long haul trucking shouldn’t exist.
Neither should lots of short haul trucking, more specifically drayage trucking, that industry sucks. We probably need to move more towards vans and stuff.
As a truck driver, I would like to ask, how would you acquire all the “stuff” you have bought over the years? I am reasonably sure most of it was not produced locally to you. And the raw materials almost certainly aren’t locally sourced. Trucking and logistics generally has its issues, and you only have glimpsed a fraction of them, but it is absolutely necessary for modern society. Unless you’re proposing we kill off 2/3rds of humanity and go back to hunter-gatherer. Not a fan of that idea.
He’s proposing trains should do the ‘Long Haul’ portion.
Even if we put 100% of freight on trains, and expand the existing rail network 10x, the need for trucking infrastructure would not decrease by any significant amount. Trains can’t stop at every single business that needs freight, and trucks are still needed to get that freight from the railport to its destination (this is called “last mile” freight, but it can be up to a few hundred miles depending on where the nearest logistics hub is compared to the destination).
By the way, we already use trains significantly. Look up the intermodal logistics network. The general concept is smaller trucks pick up freight from different businesses, consolidate it in a single warehouse, then the freight gets put on full size trucks to move to the nearest railport and the trailer is loaded on a train which carries it as far as possible, then the reverse happens at the other end. The vast majority of freight movement uses this method.
You’ve moved away from the part which specifies long-haul trucking. To my understanding this is an area where trains are a reasonable solution.
Last mile coverage we also have room for improvement with much smaller vehicles, like bikes.
My point is that long haul is a very small minority of long-distance freight. Anything that can fly, does. Anything else will go on a train if a route exists (this is where rail expansion would help, but there are other problems with that we won’t address). The only freight that travels long-distance is truckloads that can’t fly (hazardous goods that are dangerous to put on a plane, or stuff like certain foods that could be damaged by the pressure changes in flight) AND doesn’t have a good train route to take. My cross-country routes were always stuff like fresh produce or other foods that would be damaged by the pressure. Everything else would travel a few states, but never from one coast to the other.
And you can’t put 3 full pallets on a bike, you’ll always need trucks to some extent.
Which have their own issues. Namely, to my knowledge, upfront cost and lack of flexibility. I’m sure there are others.
Here in the US, you are unlikely to find enough people willing to think far enough ahead for that to happen. Too many emotions guiding actions.
But if the true costs were quantized in the formula and not just externalized maybe it would suddenly make more sense. After all, in the end, society pays for it no matter what.
The cost has already been paid. Even small farming communities have rail line access that’s mostly been abandoned because the line owners switched business models.
As for flexibility, again, that’s mostly an issue with how rail line management has evolved. From shorter more frequent trains to ultra long infrequent trains. Mostly to cut the cost of staffing.
The solution is simple, nationalize the rail service. Put it under the USPS and have them figure out scheduling to optimize the speed of goods shipping.
The current state of the rail system is entirely due to the monopolistic nature of ownership. The incentive is to increase prices as much as possible while shipping to the fewest stops possible. Profit motives are in direct conflict with generalized shipping.
The reason trunking works today is the public nature of roads. Well, why shouldn’t rail lines be equally public? We practically gave the property away to the current rail owners with the notion it was for the public good… They’ve failed that.
Tax tire sales. Heavy cars have more expensive tire s or tires that need to be replaced more often. Scales adequately for road maintenance because heavy vehicles cause more wear on roads.
Sorry, the tax is a great idea but taxing the tires is a terrible idea.
Why is it a terrible idea?
Taking a guess, but it would lead to people replacing their tires less often, making cars more prone to accidents, and thus probably being counterproductive and more dangerous.
It should be linked to what a driver has to do (e.g. registration) so they can’t try to minimize the cost by delaying it, especially with maintenance.
Tire inspection is still part of vehicle registration inspections. You can’t delay more than a year, and states can always require a tire change within a certain % of being totally worn out if having tires within x-% is showing evidence of causing more accidents.
Unless the argument is that any additional cost will prevent people from performing maintenance. Like, “gas prices can’t go up because people will stop buying gas”. Or “if you make registration more complicated, people won’t register their cars”.
Taxes in the US also have a precedence of decreasing as you get into higher values. There is nothing saying taxes can’t be a higher % on low quality tires. Buy a better tire that last longer, lower percentage tax tier. The point of taxation is to deter behavior you don’t want while recouping the cost of operation over time. Cheap tires that only last 1k miles can be taxed at a much higher % than those rated at 50 or 100k miles. We do that shit all the time.
Not all states have regular inspection requirements. Some are only every couple of years. But even if they did all implement something, you still would be encouraging people to wait in until the last possible moment to do it, which might decrease the amount it increases the risk, but it would still do so.
For the same reasons others have said. Don’t increase the cost of safety equipment.
I think you make want to go the other way. Making tires more expensive wont make people choose smaller cars, they will choose worse tires. And then they will crash into you because they cant stop.
They’ll still have to replace them more often or won’t be able to drive their vehicles or pass a state inspection to get their annual registration completed unless their car is road-worthy, thus costing them more money in tickets and remedies of said ticket.
Sure, but the problem is that you dont want to make safety equipment more expensive, as it encourages cheaping out and cutting corners. People already buy cheap and nasty tires that dont grip well or stop well (but still meet roadworthiness), its best to avoid further encouraging that.
There is no reason not to just directly tax against the weight of the car, as defined by the manufacturer. There already is a yearly rego payments, just scale that directly against weight.
A direct tax is also clear and obvious. If someone has a large car, the rego weight tax will clearly show they are paying more. Making tires more expensive just gets rolled into the price of the tire, which are already moderately expensive, so its easier to just rationalise it and ignore it.
It’s a good rule not to make essential safety items more expensive. Because consumers in general will always choose a cheaper, less safe option.
yeah if anything a subsidy for safer tires and doing proper maintenance on brakes and other safety system would be what you want.
what is subsidized, there is more of than there otherwise would be
and the opposite is true for what is taxed.
Every mile an EV drives is already taxed as we already tax electricity consumption. There is no reason to add a tax for something already taxed.
That is true also for fossil-fuel