Railway or Highway?

The following appeared as part of an editorial in an industry newsletter:

"While trucking companies that deliver goods pay only a portion of highway maintenance costs and no property tax on the highways they use, railways spend billions per year maintaining and upgrading their facilities. The government should lower the railroad companies’ property taxes, since sending goods by rail is clearly a more appropriate mode of ground transportation than highway shipping. For one thing, trains consume only a third of the fuel a truck would use to carry the same load, making them a more cost-effective and environmentally sound mode of transport. Furthermore, since rail lines already exist, increases in rail traffic would not require building new lines at the expense of taxpaying citizens."

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.

The argument reasons that the Government should lower the property taxes levied on railroad companies. To justify the argument the writers compares railroad companies with trucking companies. He also presents other arguments about railways being cost-effective and environment-friendly when compared to trucking companies. I think the argument is flawed on several counts.

Firstly, the trucking companies pay only a portion of highway maintenance costs and no property tax on the highways they use as they neither own nor use the highways exclusively. On the other hand, the rail companies completely own their facilities and use it exclusively. Hence the comparison is ill-founded. If the rail companies are willing to give the land owned to the Government and share it with other railroad companies, only then the argument can have any weight.

Secondly, railway transportation cannot be said to be a more appropriate mode of ground transportation than highway shipping in every case. Even though rail transport may be more environment friendly and cheap, it does not have a coverage as wide as the highways. In fact, highways can deliver goods to the most remote of areas where the trains cannot due to absence of railroads.

Lastly, even though the rail lines exist, they still need maintenance and upgrade. In fact with more rail traffic the rail lines would need more maintenance and monitoring. There is also a limit to which one can increase traffic without laying down new rail lines. This means that the cost advantage resulting from promoting rail traffic may be minimal. 

Concluding, the presented argument is not very strong. It compares rail transport with highway transport which is not a very convincing comparison due to different modes of operation and the fact that the trucking companies do not own the highways but the railways owns their facilities. The argument highlights the strengths of trains (cost-effective and environment friendly) but fails to address their weakness (less coverage). It also fails to take into account the maintenance that railroads may need due to an increased traffic volume when arguing about costs. Only if these questions are addressed, only then the reasoning can become stronger and convincing.