To insure ALL studded tire users pay for damaging Portland’s roads, Preserving Oregon Roads (http://preservingoregonsroads.org/) is recommending that a Snow Park type permitting system be used. Outlying residents (Vancouver included) would avoid paying a sales tax, yet they use studded tires too. I-205 in Vancouver is totally stud tire damaged. A concrete road should last 25-35 years, The ruts now have to be filled with asphalt which only lasts 12 years, with studded tire use, only 6 years. This is a huge non-point source of C02. It’s important to lower our impact on the environment and this is a good place to start. Only 10% of drivers use studded tires. Tire technology has rendered studded tires pointless. It’s ridiculous the legislators have allowed Les Schwab to dictate how our roads are used.
"...Tire technology has rendered studded tires pointless."
The snow tires with the technology to outperform studded tires in snow & ice tend to be the the more expensive models and the vast majority of snow tires used [cheaper models] do not outperform studded tires. I have no problem with banning or taxingt studded tires but that does need to be factored in for those who want to choose unstudded tires.
It's about damn time this came up, Novick is right.
However, we should even consider the better alternative, which is salting the roads.
Since we don't really have many times a year that it would be used, the damage to the environment would be extremely minimal, while the safety of the drivers would be vastly increased.
And you ain't paying for cracked windshields from gravel being thrown about, nor paying to clean up the damn gravel after the thaw.
Washing the under-carriage of your vehicle will also stop the corrosion, which European drivers do on a regular basis, with much more extreme weather conditions.
The snow tires with the technology to outperform studded tires in snow & ice tend to be the the more expensive models and the vast majority of snow tires used [cheaper models] do not outperform studded tires. I have no problem with banning or taxingt studded tires but that does need to be factored in for those who want to choose unstudded tires.
However, we should even consider the better alternative, which is salting the roads.
Since we don't really have many times a year that it would be used, the damage to the environment would be extremely minimal, while the safety of the drivers would be vastly increased.
And you ain't paying for cracked windshields from gravel being thrown about, nor paying to clean up the damn gravel after the thaw.
Washing the under-carriage of your vehicle will also stop the corrosion, which European drivers do on a regular basis, with much more extreme weather conditions.