Because the wear and tear of a bicycle on a road is anywhere near that of a car? Roads would last forever if they only had bicycles on them.
A study by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) determined that the road damage caused by a single 18-wheeler was equivalent to the damage caused by 9,600 cars. ... The study found that essentially, road damage was related to the 4th power of the relative loads.
https://www.denenapoints.com/relationship-vehicle-weight-roa...
Interesting. EV are 10 to 20% heavier than a comparable ICE vehicle. So, if we follow this 4th power law, an EV impact on the road would be 50 to 100% more than its equivalent ICE. For me that's yet another new data to factor in the equation EV vs ICE.
Basically all of that's a rounding error compared to commercial traffic (heavy trucks). They're heavily subsidized by non-commercial drivers, and a Tesla being 20% heavier than a Mustang (or whatever) isn't really making a big difference in that balance.
Commercial traffic is basically the consumer goods be it groceries or ipads, so taxing it is basically a sales tax which is almost always regressive against the poor.
The worst offender here is cyclists, who eat up road space and then buy goods offloaded from 18 wheeler, massively transferring axle weight portion of damage cost to the poor dude in beat up civic.
A road, totally unused, still requires construction and maintenance. Even simple walkway last 50-100 years. My claim is not the cost of cycle only road would be the same, it is the free-riding aspect vs cost to build and maintain cycling road.
What you're citing is only the fraction from axle weight, exclusive of other damage impactful including weathering.
You would only need to build it once and not resurface and pave it every 5-10 years. So yes we'd still need people to pay for roads.
But for the current roads we already paid for, the average car is apparently around 4100 lbs whereas the average bicycle weight is 30 lbs, so 30^4/4100^4 means that a bicyclist should be paying around 1/350,000,000 of the cost comparable to the average car driver... so litterally a rounding error down to zero.
Again you've fallen into fallacy of excluding weathering and construction costs not 4th order to axle weight. Your calc safely discarded.
But wait, it's even worse. Cyclists and drivers are benefactors of 18 wheelers. So the cyclist is the worst of all. He gets same benefit of 18 wheelers bringing him goods while offloading unequal axle damage costs on car drivers taxes. Cyclist is ultimate leech in this equation you present.
No I'd say we have a moral imperative to auction off the roads for privatization to let market force us to efficient transport options and more accurately capture their costs. I believe this will also reduce pedestrian and bike fatalities by pushing people to smaller vehicles and stuff like commuter rail.
Car drivers don't pay for the damage that 18-wheelers do to the roads in any different way than bike drivers.
When taxes are approximated as first to second order of weight and damage is fourth, the calculus is lower weight cars are shouldering unequal cost of 18 wheelers vs everyone else including cyclist consumers. Effectively part of this is shouldered of free riding cyclists consumption of 18 wheeler goods.
Comments
Because the wear and tear of a bicycle on a road is anywhere near that of a car? Roads would last forever if they only had bicycles on them.
A study by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) determined that the road damage caused by a single 18-wheeler was equivalent to the damage caused by 9,600 cars. ... The study found that essentially, road damage was related to the 4th power of the relative loads. https://www.denenapoints.com/relationship-vehicle-weight-roa...
Interesting. EV are 10 to 20% heavier than a comparable ICE vehicle. So, if we follow this 4th power law, an EV impact on the road would be 50 to 100% more than its equivalent ICE. For me that's yet another new data to factor in the equation EV vs ICE.
Basically all of that's a rounding error compared to commercial traffic (heavy trucks). They're heavily subsidized by non-commercial drivers, and a Tesla being 20% heavier than a Mustang (or whatever) isn't really making a big difference in that balance.
Commercial traffic is basically the consumer goods be it groceries or ipads, so taxing it is basically a sales tax which is almost always regressive against the poor.
The worst offender here is cyclists, who eat up road space and then buy goods offloaded from 18 wheeler, massively transferring axle weight portion of damage cost to the poor dude in beat up civic.
what are your thoughts on road shoulder parking lanes?
A road, totally unused, still requires construction and maintenance. Even simple walkway last 50-100 years. My claim is not the cost of cycle only road would be the same, it is the free-riding aspect vs cost to build and maintain cycling road.
What you're citing is only the fraction from axle weight, exclusive of other damage impactful including weathering.
You would only need to build it once and not resurface and pave it every 5-10 years. So yes we'd still need people to pay for roads.
But for the current roads we already paid for, the average car is apparently around 4100 lbs whereas the average bicycle weight is 30 lbs, so 30^4/4100^4 means that a bicyclist should be paying around 1/350,000,000 of the cost comparable to the average car driver... so litterally a rounding error down to zero.
If you look at Chernobyl (search "Chernobyl parking lot" https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/3732091-pripyat-ukraine-2021-... ) you'll see even 40 years later with no care paving is actually completely usable.
Again you've fallen into fallacy of excluding weathering and construction costs not 4th order to axle weight. Your calc safely discarded.
But wait, it's even worse. Cyclists and drivers are benefactors of 18 wheelers. So the cyclist is the worst of all. He gets same benefit of 18 wheelers bringing him goods while offloading unequal axle damage costs on car drivers taxes. Cyclist is ultimate leech in this equation you present.
So your argument is that we have a moral imperative to drive cars in order to pay taxes to support the roads that are mainly damaged by... cars?
As opposed to simply changing the tax code to better reflect road usage and wear and tear?
No I'd say we have a moral imperative to auction off the roads for privatization to let market force us to efficient transport options and more accurately capture their costs. I believe this will also reduce pedestrian and bike fatalities by pushing people to smaller vehicles and stuff like commuter rail.
Weathering is marginal as the Chernobyl photos are proof of.
Car drivers don't pay for the damage that 18-wheelers do to the roads in any different way than bike drivers.
When taxes are approximated as first to second order of weight and damage is fourth, the calculus is lower weight cars are shouldering unequal cost of 18 wheelers vs everyone else including cyclist consumers. Effectively part of this is shouldered of free riding cyclists consumption of 18 wheeler goods.
Weathering varies widely by climate. Drive around Michigan in the early Spring and look how badly damaged the roads are due to frost heaves.