I-85 Toll rate hits new record: $17 (Atlanta, Buford: 2014, new construction, upkeep)

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by architect77

As I've said many times before, all of your assets, your 401k, the cost of the food you eat, the cost of your Amazon packages are all indirectly dependent, influenced and determined by your state's roads and transportation network, the ease of mobility of goods in our consumer-driven (I wish it wasn't so much so) economy.

Even a road at the other end of the state that you'll never ride on.

I am a big fan of charging trucks more for their road usage to better pay for roads. The "Eurovignette" toll they do in the EU sounds like a great way to recoup those costs. The amount of wear on a road is exponentiation based on weight, so trucks are putting a lot more wear / costs on roads.

It is a good way to put more of the costs on companies like Amazon that do a lot of shipping instead of folks that don't buy much and get most their food from local farms.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

I am a big fan of charging trucks more for their road usage to better pay for roads. The "Eurovignette" toll they do in the EU sounds like a great way to recoup those costs. The amount of wear on a road is exponentiation based on weight, so trucks are putting a lot more wear / costs on roads.

It is a good way to put more of the costs on companies like Amazon that do a lot of shipping instead of folks that don't buy much and get most their food from local farms.

In a way, they do. The fuel tax for diesel is higher than gasoline. It's 30.8¢ vs 27.5¢ for Georgia, and 24.4¢ vs 18.4¢ for federal, totaling 55.2¢ for diesel vs 46.9¢ for gallon. And trucks get few miles per gallon, meaning they pay more per mile. For a car getting 32 MPG and a truck getting 8 MPG, the car pays 1.46¢ per mile, and the truck pays 6.9¢.

For a little reference, a mile of interstate that serves 200,000 vehicles per day generates at least $3,000 per day in tax revenue. And the 3.5 miles of connector between brookwood and I20 generates over $23,000 per day (or $8.4 million per year) in tax.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

In a way, they do. The fuel tax for diesel is higher than gasoline. It's 30.8¢ vs 27.5¢ for Georgia, and 24.4¢ vs 18.4¢ for federal, totaling 55.2¢ for diesel vs 46.9¢ for gallon. And trucks get few miles per gallon, meaning they pay more per mile. For a car getting 32 MPG and a truck getting 8 MPG, the car pays 1.46¢ per mile, and the truck pays 6.9¢.

But they need to be paying much more than that. A big rig does more than 400x the road damage as the average car:

https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-...damage-levels/

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by jsvh

But they need to be paying much more than that. A big rig does more than 400x the road damage as the average car:

https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-...damage-levels/

In reality, contrary to popular belief, Toll Roads do not like big rigs. They competitively price the tolls to limit as much truck activity as possible (for obvious reasons). They are in it to profit, not serve every car they can.

[red92s]

Originally Posted by jsvh

But they need to be paying much more than that. A big rig does more than 400x the road damage as the average car:

https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-...damage-levels/

I'm not going to check their math, but I'm automatically skeptical of a source using "9 ton big rig" as an example. Yes the relationship uses some pretty crazy exponents, but this is just lazy.

This is a "9 ton truck":



This "big rig" weighs about 15 tons EMPTY, and something in the 30-40 ton range when heavily loaded:

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by red92s

I'm not going to check their math, but I'm automatically skeptical of a source using "9 ton big rig" as an example. Yes the relationship uses some pretty crazy exponents, but this is just lazy.

This is a "9 ton truck":



This "big rig" weighs about 15 tons EMPTY, and something in the 30-40 ton range when heavily loaded:

This is true but the source is correct in statement that big rigs are the primary source of wear on roads. They do exponentially more damage than cars. Automobiles actually do not contribute to very much wear over roadways. Also the higher the speed limit on the road (the faster a car is driving), the less wear a road experiences.

The reason they force trucks to use the right 2 / 3 lanes is because they pour more asphalt on those sections to accommodate to truck abuse.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by red92s

I'm not going to check their math, but I'm automatically skeptical of a source using "9 ton big rig" as an example. Yes the relationship uses some pretty crazy exponents, but this is just lazy.

This is a "9 ton truck":

This "big rig" weighs about 15 tons EMPTY, and something in the 30-40 ton range when heavily loaded:

Seems like they're just using tractor-weight, rather than a full rig.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

For a little reference, a mile of interstate that serves 200,000 vehicles per day generates at least $3,000 per day in tax revenue. And the 3.5 miles of connector between brookwood and I20 generates over $23,000 per day (or $8.4 million per year) in tax.

Except that that tax revenue is spread out across many roads, and many miles. I-20 doesn't generate revenue, the collective trips that happen to use I-20 do. Heck, given how much less efficient in-town driving is compared to freeway for fuel-use, it's quite possible that I-20 is generating less revenue per-mile of road, despite receiving more wear and tear from the higher speeds and larger vehicles.

Anyway, let's do some back-of-the-napkin math here. Using total road mileages from 2011, road rebuild cost estimates from FDOT, and per-mile maintenance cost estimates from the forest service, we can estimate what the annualized costs of road maintenance are for the state of GA:



Some caveats.

First, this is only for the maintenance and life-cycle replacement of existing roads. More specifically, the roads existing in 2011, which I expect are under-representative of an additional 8-years' of growth.

Second, this does not include side-walk costs, nor bridges, nor even the costs of intersection infrastructure (like signalized interchanges).

Third, there are a lot of baked-in assumptions with using the averages as I have. I would love to see a more detailed analysis. I've done a better one for a single county, before, and that was already a pain in the rear, so I'd rather not do it for a whole state. Not without getting paid and having direct government assistance on accessing data. I will say that the last time I did this, though, costs tended to go up, not down, with detail.

Fourth, and I probably could have made this more clear, but GDOT doesn't actually receive all the state's collected vehicle fees. You can see that in comparing the appropriations bill (PDF Page 177)to the total collected revenue (PDF Page 11). That means that, while the Motor Vehicle fees is quite a large source of funding, it's not one that goes to GDOT to work with, and instead Federal funds end up doing the work those fees could otherwise do.

So, what does this tell us? Well, it tells us that GDOT is not covering even a majority of the road costs in the state. Well, that's not really news. We already knew the gas tax & fees didn't cover it. I think it's safe to use that percentage, even if that is an old map, since I don't think percentages have actually changed much after the 2015 gas-tax raise. Using that percentage, we can estimate that there's an additional ~$2.2 Bil. in local spending on roads, plus the ~$1.6 Bil. in Federal appropriations to the state.

That brings the TOTAL annual road funding for GA, including local, state, and federal spending up to... ~$5.6 Bil., vs a need of ~$7.3 Bil.

Great! Right? Georgia is outspending its need by ~$100 Mil.! Right?

Edit: Nope! I did my initial math wrong. If the $1.8 Bil. from gas taxes, as the overwhelmingly primary 'user feel' revenue in the state represents 45.1% of the total state & local spending, that means that the local component is actually $2.2 Bil. (or 54.9% of total combined spending), rather than the ~$4 Bil. I said earlier, which was actually the total combined spending... Sorry for the mistake!


Remember what I said about adding detail making things worse?

Furthermore, remember when I was listing the caveats? I didn't include costs for bridges. I didn't include costs for signalized intersections. I likely under-estimated the total costs for road replacements & annual maintenance by doing averages for number of lanes & road type, and not having a more up-to-date mileage count.

A single signalized intersection can easily cost $2.5 Mil. all on its own to replace (or an average of $100,000 per year for life-time, not including annual maintenance). How many of those do you think there are? How many bridges are there? How many miles of more than 4-lane interstates, or arterials that are under counted by the average assumptions? How many miles of road have I just straight-up missed?

That's before you even start to get into more abstract costs like negative externalities! Productivity costs, social mobility costs, health costs, personal safety costs, environmental costs, and on and on and on are all there. Each one an opportunity cost that cars make worse compared to more dense development and more space-efficient modes of mobility.

My point is this: paying what feels like a lot, is not the same as paying enough.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

Except that that tax revenue is spread out across many roads, and many miles. I-20 doesn't generate revenue, the collective trips that happen to use I-20 do.

Surely you knew what I actually meant. No, the interstate itself doesn't generate money. But, the vehicles driving on them have paid fuel taxes, and they burn fuel while driving on them. Breaking down how many vehicles drive in areas can give an idea of what each area is "producing" in tax.

Heck, given how much less efficient in-town driving is compared to freeway for fuel-use, it's quite possible that I-20 is generating less revenue per-mile of road, despite receiving more wear and tear from the higher speeds and larger vehicles.

Somehow, I'm guessing that an interstate that serves 200,000 vehicles per day is generating more than a city street serving 15,000, even accounting for differences in fuel usage.

Anyway, let's do some back-of-the-napkin math here. Using total road mileages from 2011, road rebuild cost estimates from FDOT, and per-mile maintenance cost estimates from the forest service, we can estimate what the annualized costs of road maintenance are for the state of GA:

I think your napkin math needs some work. First, you're averaging 4 lanes for city streets. Even in the Atlanta metro, most city streets are two lane, and very few are more than four. Only in the very core and some select arterials have 4 lanes Everything else is two-lane. Same goes for "other" roads. Secondly, you've attributed the same yearly maintenance cost to interstates, city streets, and other roads, yet I can't exactly figure out where you picked that number off the forest service thing from.

Suffice to say, I seriously doubt that Georgia is spending anywhere near $7 billion a year on road costs. But, say they were. It would come to $21,801 per lane per mile per year to maintain every lane. Now, contrast that to per mile MARTA costs......

First, this is only for the maintenance and life-cycle replacement of existing roads. More specifically, the roads existing in 2011, which I expect are under-representative of an additional 8-years' of growth.[/uote]

How many new roads/lanes do you really think we have in the past 8 years?

So, what does this tell us? Well, it tells us that GDOT is not covering even a majority of the road costs in the state. Well, that's not really news. We already knew the gas tax & fees didn't cover it. I think it's safe to use that percentage, even if that is an old map, since I don't think percentages have actually changed much after the 2015 gas-tax raise.

Keep in mind that a large number of roads in the state are not state-maintained roads. They are city and local roads. Yet, this often-posted graphic shows the percentage of state and local road spending covered by direct tolls and user fees. Most local road spending is through property taxes, as it should be. This graph is NOT saying that roads are only half funded. This is even more questionable since surrounding states which have lower gas taxes and few (if any) toll roads, like South Carolina, are covering a far larger share through direct user fees and taxes.

[jsvh]

Does anyone here actually disagree with the fact that heavier vehicles do exponentially more damage / wear to roads?

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

My point is this: paying what feels like a lot, is not the same as paying enough.

Yep. We chunk a huge amount of tax money at roads. We need to be charging users directly to fully cover the use of major roads and highways. If we are going to subsidizing transportation most of it should be going to greener, healthier, safer, higher capacity options such as transit, bikes, and walking.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Does anyone here actually disagree with the fact that heavier vehicles do exponentially more damage / wear to roads?

No. Do I think a box truck does 400 times the damage or that a Hummer does 21 times the damage? I'm not so sure.