111–120 of 324 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With property lines being about 100 feet apart, that comes to 100 houses. It's just $15,000 per house. The road should last 50 years without heavy truck traffic, making it $3000 per year per house.
$3000 per year per house In other words completely out of reach of the kind of town we're talking about?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look all you want, but road maintenance costs are primarily a subsidy for the trucking industry, and by extension the businesses that rely on them. Businesses that are primarily located in.....cities. If Middletown USA didn't have to worry about 80,000 lbs trucks hauling kombucha to your local bodega tearing up their roads, perhaps road costs would be a bit more in-line with reality. More importantly if we focused mo…
The proper solution would be to tax trucks exactly the amount of damage they cause. This would cause the cost of imported goods to go up and the cost of local goods to go down. In the short term you would see the extra cost and lower taxes cancel each other out and in the long term, local goods become more common than imported.
I also like the idea of making fines for moving violations somewhat proportional to vehicle mass. The danger posed to others by a 150 lb moped pales in comparison to that of a 4500 lb pickup truck. At least in the U.S., a ticket for speeding 50% over the limit through a residential neighborhood is the same for both, for example. Neither is OK, but considering the disparity in the potential for damage and injury to others, imposing equal fines is insane.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of shade thrown towards people living in suburbia on here. Maybe not everyone wants to live in a (rented) closet sized apartment in a major city, complete with all the noise pollution, actual pollution, crime rates, and a lingering piss-smell 24/7, and all for the low price of _more than owning a house_?
I live in a city, and I love cars. The issue isn't density, its road damage caused by long and short haul trucking. The shade being thrown towards the suburbs is because some people haven't learned the real enemy is (as almost always) crony capitalism that subsidizes trucking by distributing the costs of roads and road repair onto the local people, while the trucks do the real damage.
However, I don't think your argument justifies that American policy prejudice towards cars and suburbs. Suburbs involve more roads - trucks may the force that mainly consumes roads but of course the higher the road-to-people ratio is, the more those roads are going to be consumed by those trucks. Which is to say, of course cars and trucks both go to the far suburbs and the nowhere's villes around the country and of course these trips are part of maintaining these places.
Moreover, if we moved to more rail transit, the little towns would be more in trouble because rail tends to require larger loads and so would raise the price of goods in far suburban malls and such.
I think of this as I drive 30ish miles each way to work. 5 miles of surface roads, 19 miles of interstate (2 lanes each way), and 6 miles of surface (2 lanes each way). One cause for increased construction is the need for more capacity. My frequent lament is poor driving habits. We have regular instances of sub-optimal speeds in both lanes. A 65 mph limit and vehicles driving 55mph in both lanes, frequently with 1/4…
I was surprised to read this in the California DMV driver handbook: "If you can choose among three lanes, pick the middle lane for the smoothest driving." When I learned to drive (in the UK), the official guidance was to stay in the left-most lane except when overtaking. And then, after overtaking, to immediately return to the left lane.
On a motorcycle it's all about riding between the left-most and its neighbor. More cars expect you there because most motorcycles ride there, so they make more room. The next lane-line is a death trap, from cars in the second lane moving over for a motorcyclist over there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The relevant number here is the cost to repave, not reconstruct, which is about $330,000-$350,000 per mile for a minor arterial road in a rural or urban area. As to how small towns afford it--you don't repave that often, and you focus efforts on what to repave. For example, Cedar Rapids, Iowa calculated it would cost $500 million over 10 years to repave everything that needs to be repaved: https://www.kcrg.com/conten…
I know of a 4.5 mile stretch of small rural road in the California foothills was recently repaved for about $400k. It would be great if the variance on these numbers were also given.
My parents retired somewhere nice (read: wealthy) and there was recently a big stink at the town meeting because they wanted to repave a road that doesn't need it to the tune of a mil or so and it was an obvious handout to a well connected paving/construction company.Meanwhile my city (who's name is synonymous with urban blight if you ask my parents neighbors) bought a pavement milling attachment for a skid steer (an item that costs less than a pickup truck) and it made the regional news because they're known for being so tight with money. I could go on but I won't since you get the picture.
I feel like I am missing something here, a mile of road in a rural area costs $1,500,000 to reconstruct? How do small towns afford to maintain their roads?? Perhaps there are many costs that don't inflate as the number of miles increases, like the equipment needed to break down and repave the roads?
You're not missing something: they can't afford it, which is why roads are increasingly in poor condition. The trick is, communities can usually get outside subsidy (state and federal) for _expansion_ projects. So when the road breaks down and they don't have local money to fix it, one of the strategies is to go to the higher level government for an "economic development" project to get outside money to pay for the r…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was surprised to read this in the California DMV driver handbook: "If you can choose among three lanes, pick the middle lane for the smoothest driving." When I learned to drive (in the UK), the official guidance was to stay in the left-most lane except when overtaking. And then, after overtaking, to immediately return to the left lane.
That feels pretty legit to me. I don't remember reading that, but when I drive a car and I've got more than 2 lanes to choose from, I usually end up in the middle. The right lane always has people merging, either to enter or exit, or trucks lumbering along at 45. The left lane always has someone wanting to do 90 in a 55. Middle is the smoothest, from a traffic flow perspective. On a motorcycle it's all about riding b…
Interesting perspective. I feel a little differently:
- cars meeting to enter shouldn't affect you, because it's their responsibility to get to the right speed and time their entry to a gap; an entering car should never cause you to need to change speed or direction
- an exiting car shouldn't affect you, because there's usually no reason for them to slow down before exit
- you can overtake the slow trucks when you encounter them: just change lanes to overtake, and then pull back into the right lane afterwards
Driving in the middle lane is optimal from each driver's own perspective but, globally, it reduces road capacity and increases journey times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look all you want, but road maintenance costs are primarily a subsidy for the trucking industry, and by extension the businesses that rely on them. Businesses that are primarily located in.....cities. If Middletown USA didn't have to worry about 80,000 lbs trucks hauling kombucha to your local bodega tearing up their roads, perhaps road costs would be a bit more in-line with reality. More importantly if we focused mo…
The proper solution would be to tax trucks exactly the amount of damage they cause. This would cause the cost of imported goods to go up and the cost of local goods to go down. In the short term you would see the extra cost and lower taxes cancel each other out and in the long term, local goods become more common than imported.
All of which creates overhead in the form of people to be paid, equipment to build/own/maintain, time lost at all stages, the usual political influence problems, jusrisdiction of different areas of road, implementing policy, and corruption. Most of it will end end up as pass through cost to individuals either way as both consumer goods and roadways are deemed essential. It's ultimately a fairness exercise of tax distribution so like most things in the public interest the arena any idea must be fought in is politics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, suburbia was supported as a potential recovery effort following a nuclear war.[0] Its difficult to immediately urbanize people's lives. We agree there are accelerating maintenance costs, but suspect we don't see the same opportunity cost. [0] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?lookup=0&q=Disaster+and+d...
I also think people underestimate the desire of men to have their wives and childern living in the suburbs that would survive if a nuclear bomb hit the downtown. By the mid 60's there were so many bombs that this did not make much sense any more, but the roads were already built and there are some nice things about having a large house and a yard.
I think of this as I drive 30ish miles each way to work. 5 miles of surface roads, 19 miles of interstate (2 lanes each way), and 6 miles of surface (2 lanes each way). One cause for increased construction is the need for more capacity. My frequent lament is poor driving habits. We have regular instances of sub-optimal speeds in both lanes. A 65 mph limit and vehicles driving 55mph in both lanes, frequently with 1/4…
I was surprised to read this in the California DMV driver handbook: "If you can choose among three lanes, pick the middle lane for the smoothest driving." When I learned to drive (in the UK), the official guidance was to stay in the left-most lane except when overtaking. And then, after overtaking, to immediately return to the left lane.
So instead of constant lane switching, use the middle lane for going straight ahead, and the leftmost lane for passing.