Change My Mind
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I know a civil engineer with now 15 years experience who has designed major road projects in the region...
He says they don't even calculate for cars, because they don't matter. Its the 100 ton trucks that matter. They are so heavy they actually make literal "waves" in the ground as they compress the earth under them at speed. Sure its less a wave and more a vibration, but they do move the earth under them with the pressure.
So the huge problem is trying to design roads that can accommodate the flex of the 100 ton trucks without shattering.
Of course the bigger problem is the fact we are moving bulk materials long distances on the roads via truck which is just not ideal. The problem is the rail networks in America haven't been expanded since the 1960's, if anything they shrank as lines were abandoned. We should have massively expanded the freight-rail networks for city-to-city hauling of everything but light goods, and have lighter 20-40 ton trucks do final miles delivery. This would GREATLY ease the stress on road infrastructure which we as a nation waste endless $billions rebuilding roads that cannot handle 100 ton truck traffic. And for installations that need high volume heavy delivery like factories, they should have their own rail attachments. Rail being flexible steel has NONE of the problems that gravel, asphalt, and concrete roads have with accommodating impressively heavy things.
No problem.
And to expand on it a bit, its not like the materials to make durable roads don't exist, but we don't have enough of them to pave hundreds of thousands of miles of road, nor could EVEN DREAM of affording it. Its already something like $1 million a mile to lay interstate, these materials would make it like $100 million a mile.
Conversely steel rail is QUITE cheap, and recyclable. It also doesn't break down since steel for all its firm strength, also gives, it is after all the material they make springs out of. 1 million ton trains are possible with steel rail. There is no road ever that could accommodate that weight.
Its the reason why they went though all the trouble of inventing and laying rail in the 19th century, when they could have to shoved steam engines on wagons, and the McAdams road already existed by the time.
And all of Eurasia continues to this day to extensively use rail for the shipment of goods and travel of people. North America shifted away because of the undue influence of Ford and GM in the era of Crony Capitalism coupled with a fad of "car culture." We see now that both companies are no longer as influential as they used to be, and car culture is now limited to gear heads, we are seeing pushes being main to "re-rail" America, though they are still being blocked...actually by older "boomer" liberals of all people who want their trashfire Amtrack and to burn ALL the oil with trucks to not only keep commuter gasoline prices high, but to make way for ruinous electric trucks from their god the Globalist egomaniac Elon Musk of Tesla. Tesla in turn sells very, very, very expensive "non solutions" that will cost more to make than they worth when a good old diesel or electric locomotive is >>>> all the electric trucks for both oil consumption and even carbon emissions.