Are trucks an unavoidable reality of transportation? I don't think so. If there are ways to transport those staples aside from using trucks, it seems like an effective tax on using trucks would just be an optimization that encourages alternatives that don't spread as much damage onto general infrastructure.

For the last miles, delivering parcels to people and pallets to commerce, they are for sure. Rail just won't work well at that level of granularity. Between cities is probably another story where rail makes more sense but I'd guess it's much easier to schedule a truck at the last minute and you're not beholden to whoever operates the rail network(s).

I assumed we were talking about the high-tonnage 18-wheeler semis in context, not last-mile delivery.

What are you going to replace those with?

If only the last mile is done by truck, road maintenance taxes will have virtually zero impact on price.

In Europe, a truck may transport about 250000 packs of yoghurt. (Assuming 100ml packs.)

If the truck pays 3 Euro road maintenance tax per 30-mile trip from and to the railway cargo hub, that comes out at 0.0001 Euros per can of yoghurt, a hundredth of a cent.

3 euros seems low, or maybe the road use tax here is just too high.

One EV road use tax in Australia (Victoria) is 2.5c per km, I'll assume that's fair for now (I doubt it is, but anyway). A prior post said a truck does 5,000 times more damage than a car, which means the truck should pay $125 per km if it's fair. So a 30 mile trip would be roughly $6000. About 2.5c per yoghurt.

Not a lot. But it's on each item and will add up. Not sure how often trucks run empty to and fro either, someone has to pay for that. Petrol excise here was halved to 22c/L and my car uses about 8L/100km so that 2.5c does not seem too unreasonable.

What kind of distance are you talking about in real terms for "the last mile"?

A few hundred miles or so?

Trains

So you have to build railway lines everywhere. What's the ecological impact of all that? Where's all the concrete for all the bridges going to come from?

Everything has an impact. Rail has a lesser environmental impact than roads and cars.

What percentage of the cost of a loaf of bread is last mile delivery?

What are the alternatives? Back every store up to a rail line?

That's pretty much how it was done before trucks became mainstream.

Lots of smaller trucks.

Localize manufacturing for one.

manufacturing out of thin air? if you aren't transporting the finished product, then you're transporting the ingredients.

unless you picture raising wheat in urban environment, in which case I'll just leave you to it.

Grow wheat in fields close to town. Use smaller trucks (than gigantic semis) for transportation.

This ain't rocket science.

Transportation is quite cheap per loaf of bread. You can make it substantially more expensive without affecting the retail price by more than a cent or two.

Why regressive?

Are you arguing that making people pay for bread at all is 'regressive'?

Regressive because the new "tax" on the bread is a flat value, independent of the buyer's income and means. That's what the word means when it comes to taxes and fees.

And yes, eating to survive is kind of regressive in that sense, but it's not what I'm talking about. If we generally assume society is unfair but still balanced around current expenditures, adding more may upset that balance.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter whether any one particular fee or tax is progressive or flat or regressive.

It's the overall tax burden (or net payment, for poor people) of the whole system that's important for these kinds of fairness considerations.

The design of individual taxes should be more concerned with efficiency and deadweight losses.

That seems reasonable, a rise on prices of stable commodities can easily be counterbalanced by reducing taxes elsewhere.

I agree with that. But there has to be minimal delay between any expense and refund if you are making the up front cost higher for the lower income brackets. Waiting until the end of the year for a rebate won't be good enough.

I wasn't suggesting to give people a rebate for bread. Just the opposite.

Bread should cost whatever it fetches on the market (and that will include pigovian taxes, if any).

The amount and frequency of welfare transfers to poor people should be independent of how much bread they buy and when.

To give a concrete example: you get your welfare check at the start of the month, and the government doesn't whether you buy bread with it or noodles, and shouldn't give you a refund either way.

Sure, but you can make it as progressive as you want by redistributing the tax income back to people.

The tax income in this scenario is already devoted to paying for road improvements. There’s nothing left to be redistributed back. You can raise another tax for redistribution if you’re so inclined, but you can’t spend the money for road repair on redistribution (or else the road doesn’t get repaired, defeating the purpose).

The logistics and shipping are all part of the price of the food and whatever other items you buy. If it was solely up to the trucking companies to pay for the road wear, the increase in costs will then of course be added to the price of the food and everything else that gets shipped. So the people will end up paying for it either way, but through food (etc.) costs.

I suppose it might be cheaper for drivers that way, but groceries and other items will all be more expensive, even for those who do not drive.