* Rhode Island - Ignore the truckers' crocodile tears
-- Rhode Island implement its plan to rebuild its shamefully inadequate road system through tolls levied on the very vehicles that cause most of the highway damage... Tolling trucks here would help place the burden of highway upkeep where it belongs, on the vehicles that inflict upwards of 99 percent of the damage all traffic causes to roads and bridges... Many analysts rate Rhode Island’s major road and bridge network as the nation’s worst, with 57 percent of the 1,162 bridges deemed structurally deficient or functionally obsolete... The trucking industry will no doubt continue to try to stir up anguish among motorists (“four-wheelers,” in the industry’s parlance) by warning that if tolls are levied on their rigs, car tolls are surely just around the corner. But the reality is that trucking hasn’t been paying its fair share for decades. One Washington think tank 10 years ago said that if trucking were to cover all of its direct expenses, including congestion, pollution and highway damage, the per-gallon federal diesel tax would have to be 69 cents (compared with today’s 24.4 cents) and trucks would also have to pay between 7 and 20 cents for every mile traveled...
(Photo: Big truck travels through Providence on Route 95) -- Providence, RI, USA - The Providence Journal, by Howard Abramson - Apr. 17, 2016Labels: infrastructures' funds, truck tolls
![[Valid Atom 1.0]](valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom 1.0 feed")
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home