Except that most of the wear and tear on our roads isn't caused by people's cars. People pay much more than their fair share of road maintenance via gas taxes etc than the industries that cause the most damage to the roads.

Semis cause 1,400x more wear than cars [1].

[1] https://www.lrrb.org/pdf/201432.pdf

Semis do pay more. They pay many thousands of dollars in road and fuel mileage taxes. Not sure it's 1400x more, but they do pay much more than cars.

Right. So they massively underpay for the costs they incur.

> People pay much more than their fair share of road maintenance via gas taxes etc than the industries that cause the most damage to the roads.

Maybe. Reduced transportation costs to businesses permit lower cost goods to end consumers. Your car transporting you to work isn't your only reliance on the road grid.

You are correct, however, I was refuting the post that said that those paying gas taxes and tolls aren't covering their own maintenance costs. We're all subsidizing the industries that cause the most damage to roads, whether you commute by car or by train.

It’s actually non drivers who pay. Gas taxes cover less than 50% of road cost on average.

Misleading as this is just the direct marginal costs, you have to account for the indirect costs. Weather and water obviously play a massive factor in wear, a road would not last 1400x longer if used by 1 car rather than 1 semi.

We need semis. We all rely on trucks for everything we buy. We don't need cars. There is always an alternative to cars, not so for trucks.

Subsidized car travel is a convenience for ordinary citizens; subsidized truck travel is an advantage conferred on businesses that move a lot of stuff by truck, making their goods unfairly cheap compared to more local alternatives, or alternatives moved by more efficient means like rail and sea.

Buying less stuff > spending tens of extra hours per week getting from place to place.

it is my potatoes in the trucks. I can pay the road tax, or more for potato. doesn't matter.

Or the externalities are properly priced and the vast majority of the miles of transport are done by train, which would be cheaper if trucks had to pay for the road maintenance they cause. And cause less pollution (both in ton-miles and from reduced emissions during repaving). And the potatoes end up costing what they cost to get to you?

I'm not sure the potato subsidy is worth distorting the transport economics.

Also potatoes are easy to grow! And ship in powdered form for cheap!

Trucks do “pay.” They move goods that are sold and taxed. Until subways start shipping things other than people, they can’t be considered the same as roads. A subway can move people around; roads also move significant goods around. Every single thing in a store has arrived by road for at least some portion of the journey. Farmers aren’t shipping carrots via tram.

What in the world are you talking about? Are you claiming that farmers never use trains to ship produce? Because that’s just patently false.

I said trains, not subways. I said "majority of miles" not "to the store". The tax is the same on goods shipped by other methods, so you can't count it as somehow balancing out the economic distortions caused by subsidizing trucking infrastructure.

The problem is that non-truck solutions cost more relatively due to government intervention, messing up the market's ability to find more optimal solutions. This one is simple, it doesn't even require you to think about carbon taxes to do the math. It's direct costs, subsidies to a certain technology. Don't pick winners and losers, create an environment where capitalism can function and find the actual best solutions.

Charge trucks for damage they directly cause to roads. Simple.

Hrmn. Maybe.

Then again, if everyone in my apartment complex splits a water bill, there's not much incentive for me to use less water.

If it's truly the heavy vehicles ruining the road, and so we somehow charge the much more, then perhaps measures will be taken to address that cost...

I don't think these are your potatoes...

"Talk about a ‘superload’! Check out what just crawled along Washington highways"

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/talk-about-a-superl...

A trucker can cut road damage 10x just by adding more axles. This saves you money. But they'll only do it if they save money too. If everyone has to pay for wear, then the truckers have a reason to make those upgrades.

It does matter though. If the cost of road wear was added to the products that caused them those products would become more expensive and sell less. Suddenly there's an incentive for Potato Inc. and friends to figure out how to transport such that there's less wear etc.

Grow locally, get rid of FarmCorp, reduce the carbon footprint by eliminating the need for transport. Boom, world saved.

To me it matters a lot. Capitalism only works when the true costs of things are accurately reflected in their prices.

If the road maintenance cost of transporting the potatoes is priced into the potatoes, then the potato company might opt to transport the potatoes in a different (cheaper) way.

But if the road maintenance costs appear free or near-free to the potato company, they have no incentive to care about it. Also it makes drivers who don't eat potatoes subsidize the potato consumers.

I believe you’ve just justified my french fry habit!

> To me it matters a lot. Capitalism only works when the true costs of things are accurately reflected in their prices.

That's actually not true. Capitalism always works, no matter the problem. However, free markets don't account for externalities, and in some cases supply/demand constraints create unacceptable non-economic problems. Thus, to avoid the effects of non-economical problems then it's preferable to create economic incentives that reflect the non-economic constraints.

The price is included. Potatoes are sold and the proceeds taxed. Those taxes go to pay for roads. If we didn’t have to fix roads, taxes could be lower, resulting in higher profits for the potato farmer.

So in your model, road wear is priced into the costs of all goods, no? That's one way to do it, but the problem is that then a single potato logistics company has no incentive to use a (presumably more expensive) transport method that causes less road wear, because the benefits are spread evenly across everyone, and costs are borne entirely by the switching company, so nobody would switch. (unless you made some rule forcing everyone to switch, which is another way to do it)

If road taxes are directly tied to the things causing wear, then every company causing that wear has an incentive to find a transport method that causes less wear (assuming that the additional cost of that transport method is lower than the cost of the road wear - that's why some people argue that using markets is better than using rules; if you've properly priced the market, the market will balance between road and rail based on cost.)

That's why it's important to make sure that all externalities are directly tied into the cost of whatever is creating those externalities.

It actually matters quite a bit.

If the potato trucks had to pay for the full cost of roads, then they would be incentived to drive that cost down.

Aligning incentives is important.

> If the potato trucks had to pay for the full cost of roads, then they would be incentived to drive that cost down.

More realistically, potato prices would go up to reflect operational costs.

At which point people would buy less potatoes, or buy more locally produced goods.

Which is the entire point. To incentivize people to change their behavior.

Or, if potatoes had to be shipped at market cost, potatoes from far away would be less competitive to potatoes grown closer.

Net result would be better prices for local farms, less road maintenance needed, no impact to the end consumer overall (less taxes to support less roads).

Or your potato truck could simply have more wheels and not be overloaded.

People might see roads different from public transportation because they are directly affected by poor Management on the part of public transportation companies. If your bus is always late, you can't sit on the subway because the seat is soaked in piss, and there is no customer support for the $100 card you just purchased which isn't working, you might become disinclined to defend the exorbitant costs of public transportation. As paradoxical as that might seem.

At the same time, I've yet to see an American complaining that the government is spending too much money on roads because it's riddled with potholes.

Usually the complaint is that road money is misallocated to surface fixes that result in more potholes in the long run. In some states and municipalities, this has to do with how government employees steer construction contract awards. I see wanting to change this as analogous to the desired reforms in public transportation.

I would be in favor of many country roads returning to gravel, and the savings used to make more bike and foot paths.

And additional public transport reduces the need for roads and road maintenance as well.

One feeds into the petroleum economy and one doesn't. Guess which one is "preferred"?

The one that provides people (the illusion of) liberty through movement.

Cars and roads have plenty of problems, sure, but I have no idea what you mean by this "illusion of freedom".

He's likely referring to how (some) people enjoy driving because of the sense of freedom & control it gives them. But he is asserting that this is just an illusion.

Honestly, I feel the same way, since most time I spend driving I spend sitting in traffic or something.

There are few things I get more enjoyment out of than driving a car that corners well through a beautiful mountainous road like the Blue Ridge Parkway through the Appalachian, or up through Yosemite from Fresno.

When I need to clear my head, I still hop in the car and go for a drive with music. Not also afraid to admit -- I've had some of my most cathartic, emotional-cleansing crys in the vehicle by myself.

In this day and age where there are fewer and fewer places to go to truly be alone with one's own thoughts, sometimes my vehicle is my own personal sanctuary.

Of course other countries with excellent public transit also have plenty of scenic country roads. It's not like we have to pick between the two. (I don't think you were claiming we do, I just wanted to highlight that argument.)

Sounds like your typical car commercial. I wish cars were only used for these types of infrequent trips, rather than for nearly all of one's transportation.

How many of the miles driven are cornering on interesting roads in the mountains and how many miles are dull city traffic during rush hour? I'd wager that most people never drive a road that you'd find interesting in a car that would make it worth their time.

That's right (I'm the OP) - I love driving and work in the auto industry. The biggest pitch of the car(look at the commercials) is that your car defines you, and provides you a lifestyle and freedom.

However, there really is an element of freedom. You can drive where you want when you want. It's just that the average person sits in bumper to bumper traffic.

I guess you just don't care about the 40,000 people killed every year.

I used to feel that way, too, but since I moved to Seattle, I traded my car in for a motorcycle, and that feeling of freedom has returned in full force. Maybe it is just a different illusion, but the wind and the noise on my morning commute wake me up better than any coffee I've ever had. Getting forty-some-odd miles to the gallon on a vehicle that can go 130 MPH ain't bad, either.

Yeah, plus you don't incur the health risks associated with dangerous coffee.

If you always need a car to go places (work, groceries, visit friends, church, etc.), is it still freedom?

Well businesses and truckers/lorries should pay more to use the roads. They cause the most damage.

And they do pay more. Many thousands of dollars more.

But do they pay proportionally more, matching the impact?

Roads have a marginal cost near zero.