Stop driving. Drastically reduce the amount of vehicle miles travelled. Shift even more freight to train. Much stricter weight limits on vehicles, maybe?

Higher quality tires that wear more slowly may also improve this.

The rail idea is good.

It's too bad rail is so expensive to make compared to roads. Imagine if all roads were instead rail lines, computer controlled. Would make self driving a lot easier to solve. No tire dust...

Maybe if robots could lay the tracks down. OK this idea is out there, but it doesn't seem too crazy tbh.

> The rail idea is good.

> It's too bad rail is so expensive to make compared to roads.

Is that actually true? I mean, by what measure is rail more expensive? In comparison to rail road travel is massively subsidised. If we break down cost it would be interesting to see how they actually stack up against each other.

> I mean, by what measure is rail more expensive?

Your average truck puts out 8 metric tons per axle [1], railroads have to deal with 20-25 tons per axle [2] (and records of 40 tons/axle in Australia [3]). That is an awful lot more force that needs to be distributed into the ground, particularly as trucks usually reach only 80 km/h whereas freight trains run at 120 km/h in Europe [4].

Additionally, road vehicles have way more tolerance for shoddy road conditions - small bumps and potholes won't bother them too much, even at higher speeds, whereas rail vehicles are really, really prone to (deadly) derailments when the track goes bad for whatever reasons.

All of that makes constructing rail way more complex and as a result expensive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road#Maintenance

[2] https://www.forschungsinformationssystem.de/servlet/is/32505...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axle_load

[4] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCterzug#Geschwindigkeite...

Do trains really need to be so heavy? I was imaging things the size of cars or smaller on rails, moving around everywhere cars currently move around.

Unfortunately yes. A car or even a truck is standalone and its frame only has to account for the forces of itself moving and crash absorbance, whereas a railway car has to be able to withstand the pull and push forces of dozens of cars - the most basic train has one locomotive at the front and each car must be capable of transferring the entire pull force that the first one behind the locomotive gets, which is for European railways usually anything between 200 to 700 (MTAB IORE) kN.

And the only way to achieve that capability is lots and lots of very thick steel.

> It's too bad rail is so expensive to make compared to roads... Maybe if robots could lay the tracks down

My impression was that permitting, land acquisition, and delays due to legal battles make up a ton of the cost. At least in the US.

I'll answer this one. Well there is a company that created an on vehicle electrostatic filter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTGCFL6fukY

I wonder also if tires could be made to be just as durable yet biodegradable?

Or could bacteria be introduced to roads that eats these particles? I suppose you don't want to make road slippery though.

Yes I agree to drive less, but this really seems like a pretty big problem that needs some solving. Recent medical studies found microplastics in our bloodstream & lungs. Not good.

Probably lighter vehicles? Wear is superlinear with weight. Unfortunately, EVs aren't great on this axis.

A Tesla Model 3 is about 4200lbs.

Most pickup trucks and midsized SUVs weigh more than this.

A Renault Twingo weighs about 2150 lbs. This is a sensible car which seats two comfortably and four in a pinch. It also gets 40-50 mpg. No, you can't transport your quad with it, and it's not very useful when moving house. It's also not the right car if you're currently raising three kids; most aren't. The average occupancy rate for cars is 1.5.

Car taxation should scale quadratic with weight.

I think the issue with the nonlinear road wear taxation is that any fair system would have trucking paying basically 100% of the tax, and that would result in much higher goods transportation costs (I think it’s actually proportional to the 4th power of axle weight). Which I’m personally fine with, I think it’s bad policy to subsidize trucking over trains, but it’d be a big adjustment.

Eh that’s higher than the low end of an F-150, which isn’t something to be really proud of for a small car. The Model X is >5000 pounds. I think EVs are worth it overall, but something to keep in mind.

Let’s not forget brake dust which is a lot worse than microplastics, EVs create a ton of that.

I bet all things considered, ICE Toyota Yaris is less bad for the environment than some Tesla.

Don't EV brake less because of regenerative braking?

Good point!

Nope, most Tesla drivers very rarely use their disc brakes, it’s almost all regen.