SAYING NO TO CORPORATE WELFARE. The motive of a railroader pointing out the negative benefit-cost ratio of highway spending does not make the ratio less negative.

In a statement by Edward Hamberger, President and CEO of Association of American Railroads and Richard F. Timmons, President of American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, on proposals to increase truck size and weight limits, both presidents said they were opposed to increases.

“According to the U.S. Department of Transportation,” the statement continued, “trucks weighing over 80,000 pounds pay only about half of their highway cost responsibility. Longer and heavier trucks — unless accompanied by sharp increases in taxes — would exacerbate this inequity and, based on a U.S. Department of Transportation study, divert between 100 and 225 million tons of freight annually from rail to highways.”

In addition, by moving this much additional freight by highway, the service would require the consumption of between 500 million and 1.1 billion additional gallons of diesel fuel, producing 1.6 to 3.8 million tons of additional pollutants and 5.6 to 12.3 million tons of additional carbon dioxide each year.

Diverting these volumes to highways would also increase traffic congestion, cause highways and bridges to deteriorate more rapidly, and make it more difficult for railroads to invest the money needed to expand the capacity of the nation’s freight rail network, given the subsidy to larger trucks.

Note that "deteriorate more rapidly." The existing trucks are pounding the interstates to pieces, and, where tolls are in place, their uneconomic bypass of the toll roads is wrecking the state and U.S. highways.