A New Tax?

[SubGod22]

Taxing Drivers for Mileage?

[RoyalShock]

The title is right. This is Orwellian.

The government has no business knowing when, where or how far I drive. And you know that once they have a device in your vehicle, they will eventually want to collect as much information as the devices are capable of. That's how government works. There much less intrusive means of increasing revenue, like a basic increase in the gas tax or vehicle property taxes.

And maybe they could look into reducing quality and quantity of certain roads to reduce costs. I know in Reno Co. we have a great system of paved roads. But they are expensive to maintain. I have two virtually equal methods of getting from Buhler to Hutchinson on good, paved roads. They probably could have made a portion of one route a high-quality gravel road to save on maintenance costs.

[rrshock]

They probably could have made a portion of one route a high-quality gravel road to save on maintenance costs.

That, my friend, is an oxy-moron. It might appear that way, but to keep it in superb quality would probably cost more than maintaining a half-assed paved road. Just ask the people in Butler Co about their way of maintaining pavement.

[SubGod22]

Butler County has cut back on the quality of roads the last few years and I don't like it much at all. Everytime the "fix" a road it seems to get worse.

[RoyalShock]

I don't recall where I read it, but there are better quality gravel roads than what we see around here. Our townships do a decent job with the ones we have, but I'm sure they can be built better and work just fine as a secondary road.

My dad worked in gravel road maintenance for 30+ years. I've seen township budgets and expenditures and I'd be willing to bet the cost of grading and adding gravel occassionally is less than patching, sanding, sealing, annual line-painting, overlays and re-pavings.

Our township has a lot of miles of dirt roads, one employee (who may only be part-time) and one road grader. The roads are in acceptable condition 95% of the time (heavy rains and long draughts can be a problem). Yet county road crews have numerous employees and lots of high-dollar equipment for roads that aren't supposed to need much regular maintenance. That all comes at a pretty high cost.

[rrshock]

Butler County has cut back on the quality of roads the last few years and I don't like it much at all. Everytime the "fix" a road it seems to get worse.

Their tar and feathering, I mean chip and seal, is far from desirable. But it's still better than gravel. Marion County actually ripped up some of their paved roads and converted them to rock and gravel. That really sucked, because you have to go a ways out of your way to find a good road in bad weather.

The couple of gravel roads around me that are used heavily are expensive to maintain. They have to grade at least once a week, and then add sand and rock on a regular basis.

Gravel and rock roads that are heavily travelled, IMO, require more maintenance and probably cost more or equal to the Butler Co way of fixing paved roads.

I agree with Royal that they have alot of, most likely, unneccesary equipment laying around. Maybe they should contract it out instead of keeping a bunch of crews on the payroll.

[EAGLE]

rr, I could tell you alot about gravel road maint. verses asphalt but would be quite long winded. Worked at it for 35 yrs.,but if you want to hear it let me know. Not trying to be sarcastic just truthfull. :posterwsu:

[SubGod22]

Obama Administration Shoots Down Mileage Tax Idea