Featured New Jersey has it right

So NJ wants to find more money for the roads, but ignores ways to lower costs.

New Jersey Ranks 50th in the Nation in Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness | Reason Foundation

$2 million a mile: Why roads cost so much in N.J.

 

I'm not sure exactly how they calculated that number, but I suspect its misleading. This is a few years old, but check Table 3 in this study: Wayback Machine

Roughly 60% of NJ transportation funds are NOT spent on roads. The top non-road expenditures are:
- NJ's Train Service (Capital and Operating Support to NJ TRANSIT)
- Paying for Debt (Transportation Trust Fund Authority Debt Service)
- Helping local projects (Local Aid Assistance to Counties and Municipalities)

I suspect if you compared only funds spent on roads/mile, NJ would probably be in line with neighboring states (like NY).

 

Decades ago, I converted a Ford Econoline van to run on propane. I was expected to file with the State Board of Equalization tax form on how many miles I drove, and then pay the tax. Pretty easy to cheat, and there were plenty of ways they could have done better
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Some states check the tanks of on road diesels to see if they're using off-road (non taxed) diesel fuel, to avoid paying road tax.

 

This BEV advocate sure as heck does. Although I would add a component for weight as well as mileage.

 

Why? The weight difference between personal vehicles doesn't make much difference between them in the amount of wear they cause to the road.

 

I'd like to bring to light just how much damage big rigs do to our roads, and how much they should be paying in road upkeep

 

Yes, the real big rigs do much more damage. And in my state, are charged much higher weight fees. But the real damages, and fees, are with rigs with 5 and 6 figure weights, whereas ordinary passenger vehicles, even heavy SUVs, are down well within 4 figure weights.

Our weight fee charts start at 4000 pounds, and go up in 2000 pound increments to 104,000 pounds (top capped at 105,500 lb). A Prius pays a weight fee of $25/year. A 6000 pound SUV pays $45/year. A 100,000 pound truck pays about $3000/year, just slightly above or below depending on just which schedule it is on.

Road damage is proportional to the 4th power of axle load. By this relation, compared to the common big trucks of 80,000 pounds, all 4-digit-weight passenger rigs are negligible. Even heavy SUVs. They cause congestion, not road damage.

 

Thanks for the first hand information!!

 

Yes, commercial vehicles should pay more with a weight adjustment.

Many times I see the call for weight based fees for personal vehicles as a justification for charging SUVs more though. The weight difference there doesn't lead to more actual damage, and a long range BEV cars can weight as much as a SUV.

 

we who try to be ecco conscious know that 100,000 lb big rigs carry our groceries to the table ... often from thousands of miles away. we could buy local grown in many instances (less road damage). But realistically, we who are cost conscious buy from the lowest bidder. Double the big rig road taxes then guess who pays for it. That's right, your cost for groceries just went up. Suddenly those potholes take a back seat.
So politicians know that it's good Optics to hit electric car owners for road fees, doing 1% of the road driving, because it's not going to raise the cost of your grocery bill, .... & often - the electric-car lobby is too weak to point out that giving plugins a break so that more folks will buy them - falls on deaf ears ... & actions against plugins make sleazy politicians look like they are actually doing something .... but only against the groups where there is the least amount of political fallout
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That's the thing about taxes. They are part of the cost of doing business, so like other costs, they get figured in to the formulas used for prices, wages, and benefits. At the end of the day, no matter who sends the check to the government, the only ones actually paying taxes are people. Which ain't necessarily a bad thing when it comes to trucking. Who's really beating up the roads -- the trucks or the people buying the stuff they haul? The most equitable way to pay for road maintenance might be to have the trucking industry do that and let them pass along the cost to their customers and then do away with the gas taxes since cars & light trucks are not significant factors. Hmm. I think this would be highly disruptive for a while, but it seems like something worth studying.

 

It is correct that larger/heavier SUVs and small trucks don't really car much more road damage than smaller cars. But they do require bigger public and private parking spaces, bigger street parking spaces and cause the lanes to need to be wider. They also cause more damage in accidents when they hit smaller cars due to their larger mass. And they "probably" tend to cause more accidents because they are bigger and are more difficult to see around, especially for smaller cars.

I'm OK with charging a bit more in fees for bigger/heavier cars.

Mike

 

I'm fine with it too. Just don't claim it is because of road wear.

 

Private and off-street parking aren't road tax issues. SUVs and small trucks are still less wide than commercial trucks, so they don't drive lane width either.

Again, these are not paid from road taxes. These are paid through vehicle and medical insurances and victims' pockets.

Sure, but like Trollbait already said, don't use bogus justifications for it,

 

OK Z! Noted!

 

I like the chart but CR has gone politcal long ago.
They have shifted from crucifying Prius in mid-2000's (due to no big cost savings over 5 years ownership) to BEV advocacy.

 

Actually, that is exactly what I am suggesting (sort of).
There are all sorts of reasons why people should be disincentivized from buying and driving these giant land barges around for their daily commutes -- they do cause lots of issues such as making parking lots bigger and needing wider spaces and wider lanes just as an example. If there were just a handful of these big vehicles we wouldn't need to cater to them. There really is no simple way to tax for this to account for the costs nor to incentivize what is good for all. (Note that business use is different and presumably companies that own large fleets of big vehicles have the need and pay the costs)

Thus my personal conclusion that I'm OK with charging more road tax (since that is a tax we have) for bigger/heavier vehicles even though it is true that at the weights we are discussing it doesn't really have an effect on road damage. You may or may not agree...fine. But I don't want to suggest a new tax. For example, road taxes do pay for litter cleanup. Lots of litter flies out of pickup trucks. Should we have a pickup truck litter tax too? No.

Mike

 

There is a simple way; use vehicle footprint(width x wheelbase). The metric is already tracked for CAFE accounting. It isn't BS like using weight, but it will still catch up actual cars for the higher fee(Camry is longer than a Rav4).

The real hurdle is political will. Elected officials aren't going to pass a tax that singles out a popular vehicle category. Pennsylvania can't even charge SUVs the higher, but under $30 difference, truck registration fee. Instead, Tahoes and Sequoias are station wagons according to the state.