4 ms·

Road damage goes up at the 4th power of the axle weight. It would be simpler to just make commercial trucks pay the entirety of road taxes. Easy to collect, a

• thinkling 3y ago
  But on many city streets a very large percentage of heavy vehicles are... public buses. Not sure it makes sense to shift the cost for road repair to the public transit agency.
  • MichaelZuo 3y ago
    Why not, if their buses literally do >99.9% of the road damage?
    • markstos 3y ago
      Buses carry many more people, so the damage-per-user-mile is mitigated. Also, buses don’t require storage at the destination, aka parking. Cutting parking space allows the city to be more walkable, further mitigating vehicle damage. And increased density is also good for the tax revenue per square mile, which is also good for the city’s bottom line.
      • MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Regular buses (non-articulated, non-double decker) almost never carry more than a few dozen people.
        • red-iron-pine 3y ago
          > a few dozen people still a massive win considering that the F-150 is the top selling vehicle in the US. Not car, not truck, overall vehicle. A few dozen people in big trucks will far outweigh the damage of a bus
          • MichaelZuo 3y ago
            Not if the bus does >100x the road damage of an F150 in terms of road repair costs...
      • warrenm 3y ago
        Buses are empty (or effectively empty) the vast majority of the time they're driving around