Saw on Fox News that 6 states have already raised gas taxes and 4 more states are considering it to pay for all of the crumbling roads we have. Has anyone ever thought about what causes the roads to crumble in the first place? Are the lowest bidders for road construction using the cheapest materials as well or is that just the fate of asphalt in a couple years when salt is used during the winter?

Seems like a scam for perpetual road work when the pavers know they have to come back and resurface the same road they put in a couple years earlier. If we can send people to the moon and back in 1969, it seems we ought to be able to build a damn road in 2014 that last more than a couple of winters.

Concrete would cost more initially, but much less maintenance overall.

They would last longer if they'd quit using that damned salt on 'em..

But they always want to raise taxes for roads (or education)... it's an 'investment', doncha know..

Or we could stop paying union wages to build roads and increase number of projects using the same amount of money we are currently generating...

Not sure what the roads are like down your way, tp, but it's going to take more than a gas tax increase to fix chit up here.

Of course, like you put it, building them right the first time would help them last longer.

Why not let cheap mesican labor, and mesican companies build em, and take Americans out of the loop all together?

You ever take a glance at the side of the road on a construction project? Americans are already out of the loop.

As .gov continues to steal from the people, this whole gov is based on nothing but pure theft.

Gunner

Oh I see, non Americans are getting union wages.

The problem is vehicles getting much better fuel mileage, and folks driving less. Back in the 1970's states brought in more in fuel taxes, even though gas was much cheaper. Selling less gas means less tax money. Many roads around here are being let go longer and are in rough shape

I thought you were from VT Wondering at what point someone is going to use force and ask WTF are you doing? You spend billions to save gas. You spend billions on healthcare for people who dont work. You spend billions on global warming. You spend billions overseas on NOTHING.

Now you want more money to pay for the loss to road funds in the wake of billions spent to save the gas that tax was funding. WTF people........Local Gov had their hand out when big brother was giving to dump gas guzzlers and promote global warming. Now your not getting the tax from the stuff you PAID to have removed from the system so you want to tax MORE to the ones who didn't buy in to your crap!!! For the love of god, you gotta' stop....


Rant over

W

FACT! I saw evidence of this as recently as yesterday afternoon.

That's my take on it as well,
Save the planet by driving less and getting rid of gas hogs and the attached revenue stream dries up.

heavywalker,
You are a clueless motormouth who doesn't have a clue as to what your talking about. I worked for a Asphalt co. (paving roads) for 25 yrs. I was also in a union. Our co. owners bid the work as if to pay us the bacon davis wage, then would not pay it to us because of loopholes, putting the extra (government) money in their pockets. Typical republican business, [bleep] my workers I want ALL the money. So don't blame the union workers trying to make a living for stealing you tax money. As far as asphalt roads holding up? They are not going to, because they are not designed to. It's like a open checkbook from the gvmt. that never ends. Pave, repair, pave repair, pave, etc. etc,. Its just how corrupt things are now. Buy the way I'm not a demacrat either so don't even start that chit.

Maintaining roads is one the few things a govt. is supposed to do. .....I think.

You worked for a company for 25 years that would win a .gov contract, then not pay you the high wage and instead pocket the additional profits and I am the clueless one?

Regardless, the high wages were still being paid to someone, thus reducing the value of the tax dollars that are collected. Thank you for proving my point.

There's plenty of money to build and maintain roads. There's plenty of money for national parks. There's plenty of money to fund the military, and there's plenty of money to adequately fund NASA and all the other scientific research that only an entity as large as the U.S. Government can accomplish.

What there's not plenty of money for is all the above PLUS support 1/3 of the population of the country that lives off of government handouts and government funded health care. If you ever wondered why government used to accomplish so much more when taxes were much lower than now then look at where the money is going. Social programs eat up a huge majority of the budget, both state and federal. Back when we were putting men on the moon and building interstates we had the money to do it not because taxes were high, but rather because we were putting money towards things that are legitimate government functions instead of pouring it down the giant sinkhole that is the welfare state in some giant vote buying scheme.

Just curious, do state and federal hwy projects pay differently?

Hmm more funds to misappropriate and still have sheet roads? Perfect.

Fuggit I say rototill all the fuggin roads up and turn them into gravel...........

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 ).

20 year roads built with 30 year bonds. Or 50 year toll roads. I bet there is a lot of under the table money passing around.

The toll roads here are prohibitively expensive to use, registrations are way high. Except for the having to be tracked, a ton mile tax would work, as much as I hate myself for saying it.

JMR40 and JGray, hit it on the nose for the most part. Projecting needed highway infrastructure 20 years down the road (n0 pun intended) isn't allways a 20/20 foresight either. Areas get unexpected developement and need corresponding transportation expansion from that. A lot of road and bridge projects simply result from mandated federal regulations. We target a 20 year lifespan on all the asphalt projects in South Dakota. If you have a good structural subgrade and basecourse materials compacted to design requirements that are supported by proper drainage, road beds last well until other factors like overloaded trucks on hot days and simply higher traffic counts than it was designed for come into play. Every year better methods and materials are developed to give superior performance and longevity, at SDDOT we use them in our roads construction and maintenace programs. Low bid deal is a state law, but the desired materials and methods are allready written into the project bid and when the contractors fail to perform or meet specs they get bit in the pocket book. No system is perfect. I am posting this on a motel computer in Ft Pierre, SD instead of home, I'm here to attend a re -certification class for "Asphalt roadway inspection training". Most of the construction workers on the jobs I work on get paid better than the state inspectors on the job get, To make sure the public gets what they pay for. The Dept of Labor in SD makes damn sure our construction workers are not cheated out of their wages. The public tells us what they want out of the DOT and smooth roads with fast snow removal are right on top with high spd limits real close behind that. Not only that but they want it yesterday or years ago. Our FHWA efficiency rate for how we manage our goals for our roads are very high for the dollars spent. no rant here but it's obvious to me some here don't understand how their DOT's work. Magnum Man

guess I need to get out more,

but when I'm driving outside, from the midwest to the west coast we always marvel at how the roads are like a billiard table compared to what we have up here.


is it more an east coast thing, the bad roads?

The king is already on this, no worries boys.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/247227101.html

Federal Highways after Obama and the democrats get done with their new expenditures... based on their usual results under his administration...



The Obama Turnpike... $2.50 a mile toll..

Raise taxes=more to waste

I think every elected officials should have their books available online for everyone to see 24 hours a day. Every last check. Their expense reports. ALL comps and benefits afforded them. It would make it much easier on the voters come time....

W

This is a political lie, no matter who makes it.
Oz brought in a 3+3 (3 cents per litre for 3 years) to fix the roads.

After 30 years, the tax is still there, the roads were never fixed and the catchy marketing name has been dropped.

Every time. When they catch people in government involved in this crap they need to try them for treason.



No law that is written to raise or add new taxes should ever be put into law without a sunset clause.

Something non-industry folks usually don't know -- oil company profits are usually (at a minimum) matched 1:1 with taxes paid to host governments. Exxon's 3-year running global average is 3:1 tax:profit.

.GOV wants more?

Sheesh

Gas tax is paid at the pump per gallon of gasoline.

FED is raising CAFE standards for all vehicles. Higher MPG means less gas consumed, but same number of vehicles are on the roads every day. Less gas purchased means less $$ available to fix or build roads.

And no, the contractors aren't building the roads with cheaper materials. All State DOT's have to follow Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) regs and issue standard specifications for all state work on state highways and federal interstates.

Local municipalities typically use DOT standards for their road construction also.

Problem is, we don't build our roads to last 50 years. We build them to last 20 years and then don't have money to rebuild them for 40 years...