🛣 Headlines About California Highways – December 2022

Started by cahwyguy, December 31, 2022, 10:56:27 AM

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cahwyguy

So what are you doing on New Years Eve? Are you up doing wild partying? Or are you setting things aside to read through these headlines that I captured during December about California's highways?

The headlines are much lighter this month. I saw a lot fewer articles, and a good percentage of what I saw didn't interest me (i.e., notices of a one or two day closure, mudslide related closures that mean little in the long term). But still, there was stuff of interest.

Here's the link: https://cahighways.org/wordpress/?p=16494

Ready, set, discuss.

Daniel
Daniel - California Highway Guy ● Highway Site: http://www.cahighways.org/ ●  Blog: http://blog.cahighways.org/ ● Podcast (CA Route by Route): http://caroutebyroute.org/ ● Follow California Highways on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cahighways


Max Rockatansky

Wasn't the State looking at the viability of a VMT a couple years ago?  Was that study actually ever completed?  I'm kind of getting the gist the VMT problem is being handed off to the regional transportation authorities.

pderocco

The nice thing about a gas tax is that heavier vehicles that wear out the roads faster typically use more gas and pay more tax. Along come electric cars, which are supposedly a Good Thing in themselves, and the tax hungry pols decide to tax the number of miles people drive irrespective of how much fuel they use or how much wear they subject the roads to. It would be better to tax the electricity consumed through charging stations, and require that home chargers be separately metered and taxed. That way, large electric cars would pay more than small electric cars, and pay a comparable amount to large internal combustion cars.

Of course, those who want more taxes from drivers often don't care about their burden on the roads because what they really want is to redirect those taxes toward non-automotive transportation, or even to general revenue.

pderocco

Does Wiener really want to knock down I-80 between the Bay Bridge and 17th St in San Francisco, so that the 10-lane Bay Bridge would dump into surface streets, and there would be no freeway route through the city? That's daft. That would render the $6.5B spent on the bridge a complete waste. Or does he just want to put the freeway on the ground instead of up in the air? If the latter, what's the point? As ugly as viaducts can be, at least streets can freely pass under them, so that the freeway doesn't become a largely impenetrable barrier through the city.

cahwyguy

Quote from: pderocco on January 06, 2023, 02:14:12 AM
The nice thing about a gas tax is that heavier vehicles that wear out the roads faster typically use more gas and pay more tax. Along come electric cars, which are supposedly a Good Thing in themselves, and the tax hungry pols decide to tax the number of miles people drive irrespective of how much fuel they use or how much wear they subject the roads to. It would be better to tax the electricity consumed through charging stations, and require that home chargers be separately metered and taxed. That way, large electric cars would pay more than small electric cars, and pay a comparable amount to large internal combustion cars.

Don't always blame the "pols". If you look at the history of Gas Taxes and Collier Burns, you'll see that the push for much of this comes from the trucking industry, which wants lower taxes on trucking and higher on personal vehicles (you can see this on how they fought diesel fuel taxes when the gas tax was first introduced). You'll see similar things as electric vehicles come into play.

But there are some things that are clear:

* Newer vehicles and hybrids (and certainly electrics) use less gasoline, and thus bring in less revenue.

* Road building and maintenance costs are going up.

* Electric vehicles rarely pay the equivalent costs towards road maintenance as gasoline vehicles.

What we're seeing are different attempts to resolve that problem.
Daniel - California Highway Guy ● Highway Site: http://www.cahighways.org/ ●  Blog: http://blog.cahighways.org/ ● Podcast (CA Route by Route): http://caroutebyroute.org/ ● Follow California Highways on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cahighways

skluth

A full semi typically weighs about 35,000 pounds and can weigh up to 80,000 pounds by law. The average car weighs about 4000 pounds. The heaviest Tesla is still less than 5000 pounds. Class B motor homes weigh between 6000 and 11,000 pounds. It's not proportional either; one semi will cause as much wear as dozens of cars. The trucking industry's claim that trucks don't cause that much damage is a joke. They deserve at least all the gas tax they pay.

pderocco

Quote from: cahwyguy on January 08, 2023, 03:17:34 PM
Don't always blame the "pols". If you look at the history of Gas Taxes and Collier Burns, you'll see that the push for much of this comes from the trucking industry, which wants lower taxes on trucking and higher on personal vehicles (you can see this on how they fought diesel fuel taxes when the gas tax was first introduced). You'll see similar things as electric vehicles come into play.

I understand that history, but do you think it's the trucking industry that's now in favor of mileage-based road taxes? Do they think they'll pay the same rate as a passenger car? It really appears to me that it's the politicians, frantic that electric car owners have taken the subsidies given them, but now look like they're not "paying their fair share". Rather like politicians who invent manufacturing tax breaks, and then complain some years later when manufacturers take the tax breaks. They're right that electric car owners aren't pulling their weight, but that's true of the explicit subsidies they get too. But mileage based taxation isn't the solution, because it doesn't take into account weight, and it requires more intrusion into our privacy.

Max Rockatansky

Personally I find the prospect of a GPS based VMT really irksome.  I don't really want where I'm going monitored by anyone but myself.  A more palatable solution (specially for EVs) would be a registration based solely based off weight and classification of vehicle.  That might be a "kick in the nuts"  when it comes to huge registration fees but wouldn't necessarily be sticker shock given you'd know your bill from the DMV was coming.  Breaking up registration into something like a monthly or quarterly payment could be something the state could explore to soften the blow.



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