Why Are We Paying To Repair The Outsized Damage That Trucks Cause?

"An oft-quoted federal study once found that road damage from one 18-wheeler is equivalent to the impact of 9,600 cars." (Found from a search of trucks damage road.)  

While the weight supported by a truck axle may be 10 times that of a car axle, the damage caused to pavement is exponentially higher.  Like ten to the fourth power higher!  This comes from a scientific study in the late 1950s that came to be known as the fourth power rule.  Additionally, trucks cause further damage by stopping, starting and driving slowly.  And, as is obviously the case at the southern end of Park Place, the tires of turning trucks tend to shear the pavement, grinding away at it more so than when not turning.

Garbage trucks are particularly damaging to asphalt because of all the stopping, starting and turning they do.  DPW has two garbage trucks and there are at least 5 private waste haulers doing business in Hudson, all of them with more than one truck travelling all of our streets just about every day of the week.  Have you noticed the horrible condition of nearly every bit of our alleys?

Trucks of all types are constantly degrading our streets and alleys as well as the material that supports those driving surfaces.  Who pays to repair the damage the trucks cause, especially those trucks that are just passing through town and not making deliveries?  We are living in the vortex of a completely unsustainable transportation system gone to hell.

 

Robert Perry decided not to repave this section 
of Oakwood Boulevard during this year's CHIP's
street repaving project.  It has been one of the worst
sections of street in the entire city for years.