Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Charlie
Your VW doesn't "pound the pavement" the same way your Astro does. Charge them by the pound/mile. GVW.
The fuel tax has been the same cents per gallon since either 93 or 98. It needs to go up. And my Fit hurts the road less per mile than a Suburban, so I'm okay with SUVs paying more than I do. They could have bought something less damaging.
|
The difference in damage done by a my VW vs my Astro is trivial.
1. The VW weighs 3330 lbs and the Astro weighs 4300 lbs
2. Passenger cars in general do very little damage to modern roads. The vast majority of damage is done by heavy trucks.
If you look at the Load Equivalency Factors the load by a passenger car or light truck is tiny compared to a heavy duty truck.
https://pavementinteractive.org/refe...gle-axle-load/
Most relevant to this discussion:
Quote:
|
Heavy trucks and buses are responsible for a majority of pavement damage. Considering that a typical automobile weighs between 2,000 and 7,000 lbs (curb weight), even a fully loaded large passenger van will only generate about 0.003 ESALs while a fully loaded tractor-semi trailer can generate up to about 3 ESALs (depending upon pavement type, structure and terminal serviceability).
|
Or there is the Federal Highway Administration's Highway Cost Allocation study that shows a passenger car cost 0.1 cents per mile mile while a 80K lb 5-axle semi costs 40.9 cents per mile
FHWAÂ’s Highway Cost Allocation Study
https://ssti.us/wp/wp-content/upload...ce%20Costs.pdf
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/costallocation.cfm
Of course road damage is just one part of road usage. The other is space. The Astro and VW take up the same space on the road. Why should one pay more than the other? The primary infrastructure problem today is congestion. Too many vehicles for our current road capacity. Or most specifically too many vehicle at specific times and specific intersections. Fuel economy is irrelevant to this problem.