This could help raise the ridership of both commuter and intercity rail.
No one (myself included) likes paying tolls, but they are a good way of exposing the true cost of road infrastructure.
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Also, not paying tolls is incentivising driving. It costs lots of money to create roads and maintain them, but itâs free. We have to pay for train fares. If all highways had tolls then people would choose not to use them and instead go by other means, for example, public transportation or car pooling. Another option could be to use this money that is gained from tolls ot create HSR infrastructure so that we can get the HSR service that we want in the United States. Lastly, if all highways require a toll be paid it could be that individuals who drive Electric Vehicles can go for free, or a reduced toll.
Driving isnât âfreeâ! You pay tolls (gas taxes - federal, state & local) every time you stop at a gas station and fill up.
To drive to Homestead for racing I use the Florida Turnpike from Jupiter to Homestead. The first 30-40 mile are toll by ticket (if you donât have the transponder based Sun Pass) - stop at a toll booth and pick up a machine distributed toll ticket. After that segment you pay the toll taker at a toll booth. Another 15 miles or so further on you stop at a toll booth and pay a toll taker a set amount, and this gets repeated in another 15 miles or so. After the 2nd set amount toll you go into âtoll by plateâ territory where your license plate is read by a scanner and you get billed in a couple of months. What a CROCK!
By the same token I took the PA Turnpike last year - Breezewood to the Ohio line - 160 miles $18.50 for a single car! That will be my last use of the PA Turnpike. Hello I-68, I-79 and I-70 to go to Ohio and West.
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[quote user=âBaltACDâ]
ben
Also, not paying tolls is incentivising driving. It costs lots of money to create roads and maintain them, but itâs free. We have to pay for train fares. If all highways had tolls then people would choose not to use them and instead go by other means, for example, public transportation or car pooling. Another option could be to use this money that is gained from tolls ot create HSR infrastructure so that we can get the HSR service that we want in the United States. Lastly, if all highways require a toll be paid it could be that individuals who drive Electric Vehicles can go for free, or a reduced toll.
Driving isnât âfreeâ! You pay tolls (gas taxes - federal, state & local) every time you stop at a gas station and fill up.
To drive to Homestead for racing I use the Florida Turnpike from Jupiter to Homestead. The first 30-40 mile are toll by ticket (if you donât have the transponder based Sun Pass) - stop at a toll booth and pick up a machine distributed toll ticket. After that segment you pay the toll taker at a toll booth. Another 15 miles or so further on you stop at a toll booth and pay a toll taker a set amount, and this gets repeated in another 15 miles or so. After the 2nd set amount toll you go into âtoll by plateâ territory where your license plate is read by a scanner and you get billed in a couple of months. What a CROCK!
By the same token I took the PA Turnpike last year - Breezewood to the Ohio line - 160 miles $18.50 for a single car! That will be my last use of the PA Turnpike. Hello I-68, I-79 and I-70 to go to Ohio and West.
[quote user=âbenâ]
BaltACD
ben
Also, not paying tolls is incentivising driving. It costs lots of money to create roads and maintain them, but itâs free. We have to pay for train fares. If all highways had tolls then people would choose not to use them and instead go by other means, for example, public transportation or car pooling. Another option could be to use this money that is gained from tolls ot create HSR infrastructure so that we can get the HSR service that we want in the United States. Lastly, if all highways require a toll be paid it could be that individuals who drive Electric Vehicles can go for free, or a reduced toll.Driving isnât âfreeâ! You pay tolls (gas taxes - federal, state & local) every time you stop at a gas station and fill up.
To drive to Homestead for racing I use the Florida Turnpike from Jupiter to Homestead. The first 30-40 mile are toll by ticket (if you donât have the transponder based Sun Pass) - stop at a toll booth and pick up a machine distributed toll ticket. After that segment you pay the toll taker at a toll booth. Another 15 miles or so further on you stop at a toll booth and pay a toll taker a set amount, and this gets repeated in another 15 miles or so. After the 2nd set amount toll you go into âtoll by plateâ territory where your license plate is read by a scanner and you get billed in a couple of months. What a CROCK!
By the same token I took the PA Turnpike last year - Breezewood to the Ohio line - 160 miles $18.50 for a single car! That will be my last use of the PA Turnpike.&nb
That is absolutely right. Just because âfreewaysâ are not tollways does not mean they are free. The very first sentence of the linked artical sets a false premise. If you build a road and pay for it with taxes, it would be double dipping to add tolls without reducing taxes correspondingly.
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[quote user=âBaltACDâ]
ben
BaltACD
ben
Also, not paying tolls is incentivising driving. It costs lots of money to create roads and maintain them, but itâs free. We have to pay for train fares. If all highways had tolls then people would choose not to use them and instead go by other means, for example, public transportation or car pooling. Another option could be to use this money that is gained from tolls ot create HSR infrastructure so that we can get the HSR service that we want in the United States. Lastly, if all highways require a toll be paid it could be that individuals who drive Electric Vehicles can go for free, or a reduced toll.Driving isnât âfreeâ! You pay tolls (gas taxes - federal, state & local) every time you stop at a gas station and fill up.
To drive to Homestead for racing I use the Florida Turnpike from Jupiter to Homestead. The first 30-40 mile are toll by ticket (if you donât have the transponder based Sun Pass) - stop at a toll booth and pick up a machine distributed toll ticket. After that segment you pay the toll taker at a toll booth. Another 15 miles or so further on you stop at a toll booth and pay a toll taker a set amount, and this gets repeated in another 15 miles or so. After the 2nd set amount toll you go into âtoll by plateâ territory where your license plate is read by a scanner and you get billed in a couple of months. What a CROCK!
By the same token I took the PA Turnpike last year - Bre
While there are other taxes, much of the state tax on gasoline goes to highway maintenance. However, in NY, fârinstance, only 48% of the cost of roads is covered by that tax. The rest comes from other sources, like income taxes, etc.
The New York State Thruway was supposed to be free of tolls by now, but itâs not. This is due in part to the NYS Barge Canal (Erie Canal) being placed under the Thruway Authority.
I could travel to Massachussets next week on surface roads, but going via the Thruway and MassPike will be quantifiably faster, and the tolls will really be worth not driving through every small town and city along the way.
I could probably take the train, but Iâd now be at the mercy of Amtrakâs Late Shore, and will need transportation once I get there.
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But, even 25% of people going that route who were going to go by car went by train Amtrak would get more money and would be able to fix the portion of track which causes the Lake Shore Limited to be so delayed and upgrade large portions of track and purchase higher speed locomotives.
Track isnât the problem - congestion is. Iâm pretty sure virtually the entire route from Chicago to NYC/Boston is good for 79 MPH, and the locomotives are certainly capable of that.
Amtrak is a tenant on the entire route, so is at the mercy of its hosts (and the weather - which is frequently a problem this time of year).
I just filed the 4th quarter calander year IFTA statement for my boss For that quarter our 250 trucks paid into the US Highway trust fund right at 2.9 million miles for all the miles driven for everystate we covered. I am not going to break it out per state as 1 it would drive even a bean counter nuts and 2 the report is about 200 pages long. That is just our tanker side and dry van sides and we are one carrier. Last year the average OTR truck paid in on average close to 55 grand in fuel and highway usage taxes of all kinds. That is per truck. Were does all that money go. It pays state DOT officals salaries buys road salt pays for other items. By the time they want to do road repairs they have about between 20 and 30 cents left out of each dollar they started with. A semi that has to take the PA pike across it pays almost 300 bucks almost a buck a mile. Yeah we get hosed. Even with ezpass it is still almost 250 bucks not much of a savings. Yet the states still want to suck more from us.
I agree, that the freeways are not free. But I doubt that the gasoline taxes alone would be enough to build and maintain all roads.
If Wiki is right the average gasoline fuel tax in the USA is about $0.50/gal. In Germany this tax is $3.04/gal. 50% ($1.52/gal) were intended for road building and maintanance. These 50% would be needed to keep our infrastructure intact but only 20% are used for roads and they show.
So why reduce taxes when you need the tolls to cover the costs?
The Stockholm congestion charge was introduced in 2006 to reduce congestion by 10 - 20 per cent and better the air quality. The reached a reduction of 30%.
London (UK) is another example.
As Stockholm already had a functioning public transit system the spending of the charge is not limited.
Regards, Volker
To introduce such a charge you need to have functioning public transit.
Regards, Volker
First of all, my position is with Shadowâs owner; I am empathetic, because of my years spent in the trucking game. The emphasisâ in her statement were placed[by me] on several items of reporting that have been present for quite a few years for management of trucking companies to comply with. The main changes are that the amounts of money required for the âtaxesâ have gone up, and up, for each tax cycle.
The one thing that I think ,is the attention of citizens, and taxpayers are drawn away from by the political class is: The government does not make money, it may print it, but it does not make money; it TAKES it away from the
Shadow The Cats Owner: I am a friend of one of Penn Stateâs top researchers at the PA Transportation Institute which is considered one of the best in the USA. Before you get too upset about each rig paying what it does in taxes, he has told me the following; 1. Despite what the over the road trucks pay annually in taxes, they are paying far less of what they are causing in damages to the roads, particularly in colder climates. Your taxes would have to almost triple plus the ratio is getting worse every year. The main reason for that is the weight of todayâs trucks when loaded when compared to what existed back 50-60 years ago. 2. The average passenger vehicle pays close to the road damage it causes. They simply arenât heavy enough to cause that much damage. 3. New roads should have far higher standards used in their construction. That would mean doubling the amount of concrete in them plus major changes to base requirements. But that wonât happen due to politics and the skyrocketing cost of any new road, etc. 4. The only immediate way to bring down the cost of road and related construction would be to repeal or replace the Federal Davis-Bacon act which is a huge factor in the high cost of road, etc. repairs or construction. Iâve posted before that I have a friend driving a dump truck for the major road contractor in central PA. He makes $20 per hour on non-government jobs but is paid $40 per hour on government jobs. 5. Per my friend at the PTI, the quality of the road work performed under Davis-Bacon is approximately the same whether or not the work is performed by union or non-union personnel, although its been trending in favor of the non-union in recent years. He also says productivity is higher from the non- union personnel and the gap is growing, due to union required staffing levels as well as union work rules. Safety levels appear to be about the same for union and non-union. To summarize: (1) truck road taxes are highe
I agree. The aim of HSR here in Germany is to reduce the travelling time so that the train gets competitive with air transportation. In most cases it is faster than traveling by car even considering that the main station is not your final destination.
Public transit within population centers could already be present in America but the first beginnings were shut down with a few exceptions. Introducing it now is difficult and very cost intensive.
What a functioning public transit system can achive shows Hamburg, my town of birth. Hamburg started the first subway line in 1912. The public transit system grew steadily and is still growing. In 2017 this system transported 455 Mio passengers with 1.8 Mio inhabitants.
Regards, Volker
The impact of axle on the road rises with the fourth power of the axle load. (Generalized Fourth Power Law)
For a 1.5 t car and a four axle 35 t truck this means that approximately 37,000 cars produce the same damage as one 35 t truck.
Regards, Volker
In my mind, this is one reason passenger rail faces an uphill battle - once you get there, how do you go the âlast mile?â In urban areas, this is less of a problem, as many do have at least some level of public transportation, as well as limos and taxis. And the growth of Uber, Lyfft, etc, makes the âlast mileâ less of an impediment.
But if youâre headed for someplace âout in the country,â those options may not be available, and unless you have some form of transportation available at your destination (ie, youâre visiting family and theyâll be schlepping you around), just driving may be far more appealing.
Shadow the Cats: Indeed large dollar amounts when grossed up, but would it be possible to get a rough cost per mile by dividing the total fuel and usage taxes by the total miles driven by your fleet. Doesnât need to be exact, or separated by state, but it will at least give us an order of magnitude number.
Thanks, John
If you can, Iâd like you to produce a somewhat more specialized metric that includes some of the acceleration data for modern-car tire-patch-to-pavement impact force (via the suspension) compared to various kinds of truck suspension (with tires pumped up past 80psi and often with very hard metal springing and perhaps insufficient rebound damping at part load).
Specifically: is there a measurable âcorrection constantâ for long-travel vertical controlled compliance in truck suspensions that mitigates at least part of the practical effect at the pavement, even for higher nominal loaded weight? Are there unfiltered data on things like rebound peak impact (as there are for steel railroad-wheel impacts)?