The Pankian Metaphor 3064
the design and cost of the majority of the road systems are based on heavy truck mile-axle-load requirements. consumers have somewhat been encouraged to participate and make use of...
there is no suggestion that heavy trucks be replaced ... there is just a suggestion that the heavy trucking industry is possibly heavily subsidized for one reason or another ... and if hauling by heavy trucking industry accurately reflected the total infrastructure costs ... then there migth be different economic trade-off decisions. one is there might be more use of railways for long haul ... reducing the overall magnitude of the heavy truck mile-axle-loads i.e. the subsidy appears to be proportional to mile-axle-loads ... so long haul trucking would appear to be major contributor to total aggregate mile-axle-loads (since the longer the distance, the greater the mile-axle-loads) ... and they would seem to be the major beneficiary for any related mile-axle-load proportional subsidy.
rail would possibly be a major alternative choice for long haul trucking ... especially if both (rail and heavy trucking) had to price based on fully loaded infrastructure costs.
the issue isn't about replacing heavy trucking ... it is just a suggestion that if heavy trucking hauling rates accurately reflected fully loaded infrastructure costs ... that there might be some different economic decisions ... or they might not ... they might just pay the higher price.
Not to mention freeze-thaw cycles. Roads without maintenance wear out all by themselves.. nary a truck in sight, as anyone who has ever owned a driveway...
more detailed discussion of mile-axle-loads
it isn't so much the maximum tons ... as mentioned before. it is the number of heavy truck axle-loads that define highway as "consumed" (used up) by heavy truck traffic. the cost of that...
another example of skewed decisions based on subsidized pricing ... was large conglomerates growing rice in the delta near san francisco ... even during past draughts. For whatever reason, water was being provided charged 1-10th to 1-20th to certain organizations what was being charged to most of the rest of the infrastructure ... even during periods of draught and most of the rest of the infrastructure on water restrictions and rationing. part of the issue was that rice growing is an extremely water intensive operation. However, with certain organizations having access to quanbreasties at far below market value ... growing rice represented the maximum return-on-investment (difference between the price they had to pay for growing rice and the revenue they could get for that rice). In effect they were being encouraged to use enormous amounts of water on an extremely water intensive activity ... even during periods of significant water rationing. The alternative might have been to grow a significantly less water intensive crop.
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