Heavier trucks would dig deeper hole for S.C. roads

The S.C. Transportation Department has said it will take $1 billion more a year to update our roads to good condition. The American Society of Civil Engineers says the bad roads are costing S.C. drivers an extra $502 per year. That’s why the Legislature just raised the tax tax and related fees, although not by that full $1 billion.

Our challenges are enough on their own, but now special interests in Washington are pressing for a policy that could make our roads even worse. Led by Anheuser-Busch and Miller Coors, several food and beverage conglomerates are asking Congress to raise the federal weight limit for big-rig trucks from 80,000 pounds to 91,000 pounds.

Transportation engineers tell me that road degradation increases exponentially with increased vehicle weight. An 18,000-pound truck can damage roads 600 times as much as a passenger vehicle. Imagine what the road damage would be with a 91,000-pound truck.

Trucks are a critical part of our national logistics system, and we need them to keep our economy running, but we also need to protect and maintain the infrastructure they run on. This critical balancing act argues strongly against raising the weight limit on large trucks.

At their current weights, big trucks pay for only about 80 percent of the damage they cause to roads and bridges, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. If we had 91,000-pound trucks, the damage to the roads and bridges would increase, and the trucks would pay for only about 55 percent of that damage.

This disparity amounts to a $1.9 billion annual government subsidy for big-rig trucks. And we all know the best way to get more of something is to subsidize it.

A 2010 study found that government policy allowing heavier trucks would lead to 8 million more trucks on our roads.

Poor infrastructure harms South Carolina’s economy and impedes our ability to compete in the global marketplace.

Why would federal lawmakers make a bad situation worse?

Our federal lawmakers should resist shortsighted calls for heaver big-rigs that would further damage roads and bridges, increase congestion and harm our economy.

This story was originally published May 22, 2017 at 5:07 PM with the headline "Heavier trucks would dig deeper hole for S.C. roads."