Assuming we're resurfacing our roads once every 5 years, if we banned trucks it would take 100x longer to accumulate the same amount of damage, so we'd be able to resurface only once every 500 years?
I would expect there to be a significant amount of damage done just by the elements, independent of usage.
There’s also the fact that roads are built up to trucking standards. Without trucks the roads would be thinner, reducing cost and pollution (concrete is a major source of CO2).
Sure. I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusion that trucks undercontribute to road maintenance costs. I just don't think those numbers are sufficient to prove it.
This is utterly false and in a trivially verifiable way in this age of street view.
Raised highways sometimes have concrete decks because the strength can be attractive but the overwhelming majority of highways are asphalt. At or below grade highways are almost always asphalt. Tunnels are often concrete but those are a vanishingly small minority of miles.
AFAIU, the original Interstate Highway System was all concrete. These days states usually resurface heavily trafficked segments with asphalt (of various varieties) atop the old concrete. Apparently, at least as of 2006 60% of the system was still concrete pavement: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3127/2006-3127.pdf Which is not surprising as IME long segments of the IHS are often still concrete pavement, especially in the South and West; it's only in urban areas where asphalt surfacing seems ubiquitous.
I'm not sure how new segments are built today, but they may very well still use concrete underlayment, or at least something more substantial than loose aggregate. Road tech these days is way more complicated than just concrete v. asphalt. I would guess that for remote segments, and given the load requirements, it may still be cost effective to keep using concrete surfacing.
If you’re going to call something “utterly and trivially verifiable (sic) false” you should actually check. Interstate highways use more cement than asphalt.
“The analysis shows that a total of approximately 1.5 billion metric tons (Gt) of aggregates, 35 million metric tons (Mt) of asphalt, 48 Mt of cement, and 6 Mt of steel is in place in interstate highways.”
I would expect there to be a significant amount of damage done just by the elements, independent of usage.