Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 16:39:26 -0500
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: road use subsidies
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

ronkean at juno.com wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 04:50:05 -0500 (EST) "Keith F. Lynch"
> <kfl at KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
>>If truckers paid the full cost of their road usage, passing it
>>along
>>to buyers of truck-shipped goods, people would pay in proportion
>>to their usage.
>
> That sounds right.  But who says trucking shippers don't pay the full
> cost of their road usage?

You can show anything you want; all you have to do is choose the proper
metric.  Last number I saw (many years ago) was that wear & tear on the
roads was proportional to between the fourth and fifth power of axle
weight.  This means that an 80,000 lb truck would cause almost 13,000
times the wear of a 3,000 lb car. ((80000/5)/(3000/2))^4 = 12945.  I
seriously doubt that trucks pay 13000 times what cars do.

> Less car-produced air pollution.  But who says public transport does not
> pollute?  Metro rail's air pollution comes out of power plant
> smokestacks, and busses spew thick black diesel exhaust.  Either form of
> transport could be made pollution-free given advances in technology.

The power plants that provide the electricity for Metro produce very
little pollution. Properly maintained diesel engines don't smoke.  (As
I'm sure you've noticed, Metro isn't very big on maintence.)

> Even so, I would prefer to have bus and taxi service in this country
> privatized and deregulated, the only regulatory involvement being to
> enforce minimum safety standards and combat fraud.

Taxis?  Been tried in Phoenix; it's a disaster.  (What's a fair price
for a taxi from the airport to the Biltmore? Quick, now.)  Admittedly,
I've never had trouble getting a taxi there during a snowstorm.

Busses?  Problem is "cherry picking".  Some routes and times are losers;
  some are money mines.  Nobody wants the former; everybody wants the
latter.  Want a bus outside of rush hour or to a place that won't get a
full bus?  Fugghetaboutit.

--
Steve Smith                                    sgs at aginc dot net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."