Logging truck protest rolls through downtown Duluth
September 27, 2012 at 4:11 am in Duluth News Tribune
Several dozen logging trucks rolled down Superior Street in downtown Duluth this morning to protest federal weight restrictions on the interstate highway system. Continue Reading
The timber haulers are correct.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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John, please more explanation..
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The interstate system is the most well built, maintained, and safe roadways available to all of us. Forcing loggers onto alternative routes isn’t in the best interest of anyone. Maybe Sweeney and Jewell can pass a county resolution in support of the loggers! ha.
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Road damage goes up as a quartic of axle weight. So if you set a 2000 pound car (with 2 axles so 1000 pounds per axle) as 1, then a 4000 pound SUV (with 2 axles at 2000 pounds per axle) does 16 times the damage.
An 80,000 pound over the road truck with 5 axles has 16,000 pounds per axle and does 2^16 or a bit over 65,000 times the amount of damage to the roads per mile driven as that 2000 pound car.
Compare that with a 50,000 pound truck that has 10,000 pounds per axle. It would do 2^10 or 1000 times the damage as a 2000 pound car, but it’s less than one sixth the damage done by an 80,000 pound truck.
We cannot have nice roads and overloaded trucks at the same time.
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Bah! I did that math wrong. It’s not 2^N, it’s N^4. Not enough coffee yet.
So, corrected.
1000 would be equivalent to 1^4 or 1
2000 would be 2^4 or 16
5000 would be 5^4 or 625
10,000 – 10^4 or 10,000
16,000 – 16^4 or 65,536
90,000 pounds across 6 axles as the truckers are asking for would be 15,000 pounds per axle or 50,625 times the damage of a car.
80,000 pounds across 6 axles, the federal standard would work out to 31,600 times the damage of a 2000 pound car.
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How about the damage several dozen trucks do to a downtown cobblestone surface?
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I find it ironic that the roads these trucks are banned from are largely composed of reinforced concrete, while the secondary roads that they’re rerouted to are mostly asphalt.
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How about this the average politician does 1000 times more damage to our society than one average citizen with common sense !
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Cities in MN banned trucks on many State Aide routes like Superior St years ago. State was taken to court over this and lost. Pay taxes have a right to use. So now it may be time to take Feds to court over the use of Fed Aide roadways.
Maybe Ken Buehler has a train to haul the logs..
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