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I feel like this means taxes should be imposed on cars proportionally to the fourth power of axle load too.
by dataflow 2y ago
I feel like this means taxes should be imposed on cars proportionally to the fourth power of axle load too.
- lostlogin 2y agoThe US is a poster child for ‘user pays’, but I wouldn’t fancy the chance of success.
- erikaww 2y agoCar makers would adjust but road freight would fight this tooth and nail
- dataflow 2y agoGood point, but one could probably easily treat freight vehicles differently.
- coryrc 2y agoNo, they should be paying for their damage. Bring back local railroads if it's a problem. Add more axles, move less at once.
- Groxx 2y agoIf only we had other technologies for moving heavy things without using concrete roads
- stefan_ 2y agoTechnology that was infinitely more efficient and safer, even
- gruez 2y agoDrones? For last mile delivery roads are the only game in town.
- nradov 2y agoThe USA already moves a higher percentage of freight by rail than almost any other country. But rail could never work for time-sensitive loads or last mile delivery.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoYou would be amazed at how much FedEx, UPS, and Amazon traffic moves by train. BNSF (at least) even has "guaranteed delivery" trains. Last mile I will give you. Those shippers use trailers and containers on railroad cars, and trucks do the last mile delivery.
- Groxx 2y agoPerhaps they could make the rail lines and machinery smaller. One might even consider such rail to be "light", in comparison. I'm sure it's pure coincidence that many cities already have rail lines going down roads in city centers. They probably just built the city around a historical freight line, and haven't bothered to remove it.
- yyyk 2y agoHorses? I don't see how you really solve last mile.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoHuh? I've had horses in my basement. The last mile was solved centuries ago.
- blibble 2y agothe freight has more axles, and you could set the baseline weight by vehicle class but maybe this would just incentivise the sort of person that buys an F150 to drive to the shops to simply to upgrade to a big rig (for the tax saving?!)
- bobbylarrybobby 2y agoSegregating regulations by vehicle class is how the CAFE laws failed. Make your vehicle a “light truck” and now you can give it much worse mileage. No, you just have to charge in proportion to damage done and let the economics work out how they will.
- alamortsubite 2y agoAlso penalties for moving violations.
- jl6 2y agoThe unintended consequences of this would be: Massive increase in the cost of public transport as buses pass their tax costs onto users. Massive increase in the cost of freight shipping, which would be passed on to consumers, i.e. everybody, since virtually every part of the economy depends indirectly on freight transport. It would amount to everybody paying, and thus being more or less equivalent to public funding of roads.
- dwattttt 2y agoIt's worth noting that unless the roads are degrading and not being repaired, those costs are already being paid. It's just a question of who is paying it.
- dataflow 2y ago> The unintended consequences of this would be: ... public transport ... freight You could obviously tweak legislation to treat such vehicles differently if you wanted. I was just getting the core idea across, not suggesting my comment should be copy-pasted verbatim into the next bill Congress is passing.
- gamepsys 2y agoFreight -- Ideally this causes more investment into freight rail and more freight to be moved by rail/boat. This might cause short term price increases to expand the infrastructure, but long term it's much cheaper/greener/efficient to move this stuff on rail. Last mile (maybe last 100 miles) will always be by truck, but we have way too much long haul stuff. Public Transport -- If tax payers are currently paying for the external costs of public transportation (via taxes to repair roads) then it won't cost anymore public money if taxpayers continue to cover that cost. For private busses this is a case of tax payers unfairly subsiding their external costs.
- AdrianB1 2y agoIntended consequence would be: cars pay for the damages they do to the road. Even buses. What is wrong with that?
- 2y ago
- Bloating 2y agoI feel like many things too