Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire So they want to raise the gas tax to fix our roads . . .

I don't believe so - most state hwy projects get the majority of their funding from the feds (80% is pretty common). I'm not a paving contractor, nor am I in the asphalt business, though am involved on the engineering side as a consultant working with DOT's on hwy projects. As to pavement life, we have to go through a life cycle/cost analysis comparing concrete to asphalt, how many years it's expected to last, etc. Truck traffic is the biggest factor as to wear and tear on the roads - passenger vehicles have very little to do with it. As has been said, concrete lasts longer but is more expensive to put down. Asphalt is cheaper but requires more maintenance. Concrete usually doesn't pan out as being cost effective until traffic volumes, especially trucks, are very high (interstates). We typically are looking at a 20 year design life with crack sealing and overlays required during that time. We specify the requirements of the asphalt based on cost, expected life and maintenance. It's all a balance/compromise. We can design a hell for stout pavement section that will last longer but if the funding isn't there...

Thanks for the reply. Is the 20 year thing pretty realistic?

Here state and fed projects are different pay scales, however you only get into fed funding on military bases and federal property. Even though the feds help the state with highway funds the state is the agency that allocates the funds so the state wage scale is used. The state scale is significantly higher in most categories.

Hell...The only white Guys on Road crews around here are sitting in there trucks watching the Beaners work.

Federal gasoline tax is 18.4 cents per gallon and state taxes run from 8 cents to 50 cents per gallon with most in the 25 cents to 35 cents per gallon range. Can you imagine how many dollars the feds and states collect each day on gasoline taxes. But I'm sure it's all used wisely, ha.

heavywalker,
We hired layers and went to court, when the smoke cleared we were told it wasn't supposed to be that way, but they weren't REALLY breaking any laws. My point is it's not the workers making OUR tax dollars worth less and do less. I can't begin to tell you how many state workers I've had walk up to me on job sites and ask if I was being paid the correct amount. Finally we just laughed in their faces and they would get mad, and I would tell them if they kept poking around here my boss would make them disappear like a David Copperfield elephant, and he did. The corruption involved in govt. money is beyond most peoples grasp. But hey as long as they can keep us at each others throats (union vs nonunion, ETC) they just keep going unhindered.
P.S. sorry for the personal attack.

That begs the question, what good does it do you to be in a union then? Isn't that the whole point of one? To stop the man from putting you down?

The gas tax we've been paying, all along, was for roads! And, as cars get smaller and lighter (and better mileage), their impact on roads diminishes. Increased taxes are to make up for .gov waste.

In Pa. If you get caught not paying the wage the state will make you wish you did. A ban on bidding state work for life. Huge fines and in some cases jail time. It only takes one disgruntled worker. What contractors will do is play with job classifications, pay a concrete finisher laborer wages and things like that.

That really is the problem. The idiots cannot understand simple economics.

Those funds have went to finance las vegas whores, cocaine, and benzs' for the politicos Pal, you are exactly right, waste.

Gunner

Don't forget that tens of millions of state and federal tax dollars get diverted to choo choo trains for mass transit which ridership NEVER begins to pay for. Ditto for bike trails and other happy horse bleep.

As others have pointed out, due to the CAFE standards and a drop in gas useage, state and federal tax dollars are decreasing.
As more enviro-wacko buy electric cars, they escape gas taxes and some states are or have increased vehicle tabs to recoup the lost gas revenue.
And to add insult to injury, moronic companies like to put up charging stations in the front row to show off their concern.
To date, I have yet to hear that the employees pay for the electricity they use!

This, taking money for infrastructure and wasting it on recreation. Then again with the price of fuel, we might need those bike trails when we can't afford cars anymore.

Government work is davis-bacon wages and certified payroll, union or non-union. Union wages are higher than davis bacon though.

Hey guys,

Lots of variables, but you could use the average pavement life cycle is about 25 years. So basically, like anything else in life - be it your car, the paint on your house, or the pants you are wearing, at some point, you need to replace it. Nothing lasts forever.

In the last 25 years, the revenue side (gas taxes) has generally stayed where it was when set say 25 years ago. Many State gas tax structures were not indexed or tied to cost increase like say the consumer price index. Many States even had flat tax per gallon at a point in time many years ago. Also, lately, because the bad economy (people are driving less) and more fuel efficient cars, the taxes collected is going down so less coming in on the revenue side of the equation.

Now, to make matters worse, the expense side of the equation is going up. We all know gasoline and petroleum products is much more expensive than it was 25 years ago. Maybe a 3 times increase in price. But the State is still collecting at the set amount per gallon. To make matters worse, refineries are making more fuels per crude input at the refinery, and making less asphalt paving grade. Keep in mind the amount of liquid asphalt in a paved roads is say about 7% of the paved road surface. In a word, the refineries are squeezing out more gasoline from the input crude to the refinery, thereby providing less of the asphalt "tar" used to make roads (that historically used to be more of a waste product I guess you could say). I think the "tar" to make roads has gone up much more than 3 times per unit in the last 25 years because of the refinery "efficiency." If you notice, the same thing has happened to diesel fuel prices the last 25 years.

So, in a word, revenues for road maintenance generally went down, costs went up. And up by quite a bit.

That leaves only two choices or some combination of both: get more revenue, or lower costs somehow.

Lowering costs means lower service levels by the way of more potholes, and less maintenance, and even up to and including turning paved roads back to gravel roads (because lower traffic volume gravel roads generally cost less to maintain per year, per road mile than paved roads - again, lots of variables however).

And raising revenues means getting more taxes from some form, be it gas taxes, property taxes, or sales taxes.

On a side note, concrete is a good pavement, but costs a lot. A lot more per mile than an asphalt road. Lot more expensive to replace too. It is all in what you design the road to carry as far as traffic and trucks. That is another whole dimension to the topic. Just an FYI - if you look at the amount of loading and damage caused by 80,000 pound legal limit trucks, it is a lot more than a car does. By about a factor of 500 to 1000 times. But again, that it aside to the topic at hand.

Lowering costs are as easy as taking the work away from the gravy-train .gov "workers" and contracting with more efficient private companies.

smalljawbasser,
Good question, after teflon Ron launched his attack on workers the laws began to change at a rapid rate. Now unions are usless. Even though I was in one, I didn't agree with all they did or stood for. They brought a lot of their downfall on themselves. Now the unions are just another big business. Big business saw what 80-90yrs. of organized labor got us, as far as a living wage and decent working conditions and that is NOT going to go on any longer. If I don't starve to death as a senior citizen i'll be glad my working days for the most part are behind me.

Still though, the cost of the asphalt material, and the fuel prices to deliver those materials and such will be unaffected by the labor component costs to fix the roads. The material and equipment related costs are unaffected by who actually does the work or what they are paid.

It still goes back to the increased costs related to petroleum prices, and the revenue side not keeping up with the cost side increases.

It's called low bid, also one of the reasons they cost so much is contractors in Michigan are required to pay state "prevailing wages" the prevailing wage depends on the job performed but is way higher than if the job was not funded by the state.

It's your state screwing you in the azz with a great big stick.

The DOTs often do their maintenance projects in-house and don't involve us. They have pavement analysis/maintenance folks that could answer that better than I. Usually when we do get involved, the highway and/or interchange is in bad enough shape that complete reconstruction is needed. I've been at this with my current employer for 18 years and from the projects I've been involved with, I've seen overlays needed at 10 years, and others that have gone well over 20 with minimal maintenance. There are always localized areas where we don't get the expected life due to a variety of factors. Weather can be one - frost heaves can tear up a road pretty quickly once it starts. Drainage problems can saturate the subgrade below the pavement and cause problems in a hurry. Then there are always pockets of chitty soils (clay) that aren't picked up by surveys that cause all kinds of grief.

I think 20 years is a good target, but there are too many factors to make it definitive. The road project I'm doing now was originally built in the 1930's and was last overlayed in 2005. I'm not aware of it ever being completely rebuilt though assume other overlays were completed prior to 2005. We're replacing 70-some year old timber bridges, complete road reconstruction in some frost heave areas, and then another mill & overlay to finish up. It should look and drive like a brand new road when we're done (if I did my job right ).