Washington State Department of Transportation is starting to realize that we cannot afford to maintain the sheer volume of roads we build. The maintenance debt that we have built up is bankrupting our governments and it’s only going to get worse year by year.
Civilization itself cannot afford to have so many car oriented roads long term.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/article_e69a80be-75f1-11ef-8b50-3babe18f06e9.html
Roads are expensive for sure, but they’re also necessary for last mile transport of good, even in walkable cities. Even bike paths need road maintenance because of environmental factors.
We don’t need nearly as many lanes as many highways have, but the amount of car oriented roads isn’t as much of a problem as the implicit government subdisies flowing into roads is. Road users don’t pay enough to maintain the roads they’re using.
This can all be fixed, though. Tax vehicles based on weight (for road damage), torque, and pollution, possibly with exemptions for trucks to make transport viable, and roads can be used and maintained. This has the added benefit of making land yachts less economically viable and making the roads safer for everyone as a consequence.
Good luck convincing car owners to pay twice the amount of tax being spent on roads, though.
Many countries have tied the vehicle tax to the ‘weight’ of the car. Most of them use power to determine the weight, but still.
You could get taxed on traveled distance pdr year but the poses a problem with people who travel outside of the countries limits.
Toll systems seem to be quite effective.
Economists love toll systems because they’re essentially a use-tax: drive more, pay more.
Unfortunately, they’re also a regressive tax. Poor people generally drive more because they can’t afford to live near their work/school/etc. So, the additional tax revenue is mostly extracted from the people who are the least capable of changing their behavior and have the least disposable income.
Toll roads always annoyed me. Here they are usually a public-private partnership. I’ve always argued that if a private company views it as profitable then a better use of money would be handle it all publicly so we can reduce the toll cost or invest the earned money into other infrastructure, instead of the pockets of wealthy people.
Do the same thing federal taxes do - standard deduction
I like it. Take my vote in your next election.
I bet they’re so glad they let car companies bribe them into killing off trams eh
With varying degrees of regret. Some cities named to keep the right of ways, so rebuilding is more reasonable, others gave/sold it off and now they’re double plus fucked.
Most of the pre-1950’s trams were private, and not city run. The cities that took them over and kept them running are looking really smart at this point.
My city is about as smart as a box of rocks.
Washington’s roads could degrade significantly and still be better than all its neighbors.
Wsdot will build an entire secret second carpool only interchange underneath another massive highway interchange and then end the carpool lanes immediately after.
Has anyone done a study to see if rail is cheaper to maintain than roads? Good public transport infrastructure would go a long way to preserving road conditions and keeping traffic lighter.
