indyfabz

PA has the highest gas tax in the country at $0.77/gallon. (National average is $0.51/gallon.) Federal is 18.4 cents/gallon. Gallon of gas in my area hovering around $2.95.

Since the federal gas tax doesn't come close to covering federal highway spending, you are actually making up the difference from the taxes you pay into the general fund--assuming you actually pay any federal income tax.

sdmc530

Not saying your incorrect but we are doing the same thing right now with health care and have been for some time...WAY overpriced for medical care...that will never get fixed IMO. (sorry not trying to get off topic) We are fortunate that we have a supply of fuel here in the US to avoid the crazy prices. I don't think Europe mainland has fuel mining resources? I could be VERY wrong on that I thought they got most of the fuels burned from other countries probably creating the high prices/taxes.

Lazyass

Their fuel prices are high partly because the government pockets over 60%. I'm sure that's one reason why cycling is more popular there. If I lived in London located on an island, and if I could hop on a train to go to Coventry for the weekend (been there), then I might be happy with no car. But it's not the same here. I live in the middle of nowhere in a town with no stoplight or police force. I can't hop on my bike and go shopping, and no one here can ride their bike to work.

jgwilliams

We do, but the high prices are a matter of choice (by the various governments), not necessity. I don't think we pay a lot more for oil per barrel than you do, it's all taxation. I don't mind tremendously other than the fact that we pay VAT on the whole price per litre, and a big chunk of that is duty. So the government is charging us tax on a tax which just feels like adding insult to injury.

I'm not sure there's anywhere in the world that pays quite so little for gas as you do except for the OPEC countries.

sdmc530

Your correct, 70% of this county is very wide open and sparse so a majority of people myself included like you depend upon cars.

sdmc530

I was just reading on this now that I am curious. top three countries in the world with high fuel tax are:

1. Denmark
2. japan
3. UK

This is actually kind of crazy that the top three are considered first class counties and quality of life is very high and with all the recourses and actual trade power they posses they still have this issue? I actually feel bad for a legit business owner that is required to deliver a product....that has to be a very heavy burden on the bottom line.

kingston 

I rode a 200k with a guy from the UK earlier this year and we spent some time talking about why an Audax ride of similar distance in the UK might have hundreds or even thousands of riders, and our little 200k within an hour or so of both Milwaukee and Chicago had under 50 people. His observation was that the Audax rides were set up to be a lot more fun and a lot more social. He said there are different distances, so families can participate, and they almost always end at a pub and have stops at pubs along the way, so even riders doing different distances and speeds could meet at the pub along the ride and at the end of the ride. They also have a lot more support with food along the way, prizes, t-shirts, etc. Compare that to our 200k, which has one distance, we stop at convenience stores along the way, and everyone just packs up and goes home as soon as they finish. Aside from the actual cycling, it's not very fun, and certainly not very social. I’m pretty sure I’ve ridden whole brevets without ever talking to another rider for more than a few minutes.

StanSeven

I-Like-To-Bike

The article in the OP doesn't provide much evidence that cycling is all that popular now in the U.K. if percentage of the population who are active cyclists is the metric. The only actual numbers cited about UK riders is that "More than two million people across the country now cycle at least once a week." This is in a country of 66+ million people.

All the other jabber in the article about rising percentages of bike sales or trendy items of bicycling "kit", or British victories in races doesn't signify as much as some posters here seem to believe about the percentage of people in the U.K. who use a bicycle for commuting, or about the percentage of people in the U.K. who use a bicycle as an alternative means of transportation in the U.K.

The article doesn't even provide any data about the percentage of people in the U.K. who give a darn about professional cycling.

Witterings

It's not that we don't like them .... we're just not allowed them!!

Funny thing is as a Brit I go on holiday to most of the rest of Europe and think .... I wish we were as cycle friendly as you guys are .... France, Spain, Copenhagen, Berlin, Amsterdam all seem to have way more bike lanes than we currently do and better placed along the quieter roads ... although it is getting better .... slowly.

I have seen threads before though inferring in the US anyone on a bike is pretty much bottom rung of the ladder which is where we were 10 years ago but it's just received a lot of good press as our cyclists have done well in major events over that period of time, the health benefits have become more apparent and maybe we've benefited being closer to Europe for some of it to have rubbed off on us.

Would of thought you'd see some changes in favour of cycling on your side of the pond over the next few years ... you need another Lance but without the drugs

sdmc530

This is the truth^^^^

To be fair in the last decade(ish) maybe larger cities have done a really nice job of creating infrastructure with cycling in mind. I travel to Minneapolis/St Paul numerous times a year and they have an amazing bike trail system in the metro area. Really fun to ride. Great support there, I live in a smaller town and even we are doing more in way of recreation trails again. Shortage of money usually stands in the way but I think most populated areas see the benefit of it.

I don't think we will ever compete with the UK in this department though.

aclinjury

Thank you! not sure why Americans feel they need to teach other peoples how to run their tax system.

I-Like-To-Bike

Don't be confused, Lance was popular, an American beating foreigners at their own game will always be popular back home. Lance was a good thing for several merchandisers of cycling product, especially Trek.

The "Lance Effect" however, as far as boosting the percentage of Americans cycling in any significant manner, or the "popularity" of cycling in the U.S., was mostly a creation of the media and the wishful dreams of bicycling enthusiasts and merchandisers.

alcjphil

A pretty harsh assessment, but probably accurate. In the end, he probably did more harm than good. Local activists are the ones who actually make a difference:
​​​​​​Bicycle Bob was years ahead of his time
Bicycle Bob was part and parcel of the movement to promote cycling in Montreal. This can never be a national issue in North America. Promoting cycling will always depend on the city where it is being implemented. Cities with traffic problems can often be helped by cyclists, but not always. Local activists are the longer lasting solutions

Gresp15C

Given that bike sales are predominantly cruisers, hybrids, MTB's, and now electrics, it's hard to imagine that professional road racing has greatly influenced cycling in the US.

fietsbob

Have you personally taken a survey at the local pub? how many biked there?

I-Like-To-Bike

Facing or acknowledging reality can sometimes be a beech; some enthusiasts and their media hypsters prefer to pretend or even believe that their wishful thinking is the ground truth.

nios2

Plus the tax concession from the ride to work scheme?

jgwilliams

As a UK cyclist, though, I can confirm that cycling is on the rise here. When we moved into our new building at work provision for cycle storage was made in the basement. At the time there was plenty of room for all of us. Now it is full to bursting.

Here is another article with some interesting info.

Jim from Boston

Why Is Cycling So Popular in the U.K.?

Quote:

Originally Posted by radroad

Any cycling enthusiast can't help but notice that several of the top online bicycling retailers are U.K. based and so are some of the best cycling publications.

It seems like Brits are enamored with bicycling as a sport and bicycles as commute vehicles in a way that Americans have never been and probably never will be…

I don't think cars will ever be displaced as the no.1 form of transportation in the US but are there lessons to be drawn from the British case?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gresp15C

Cycling was popular in the US around the turn of the last century. The Wright Brothers were not an anomaly -- there was a bike shop in every town. But the US is where mass production of the automobile got its start, and that's what killed cycling. Today, our cities are designed around the car.

Cycling culture thrives in college towns where the college is modeled after a Medieval European city. If you visit the typical regional or commuter college campus, it's all cars.

It's not about culture, but about urban design, economics, and objective factors such as climate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gresp15C

Given that bike sales are predominantly cruisers, hybrids, MTB's, and now electrics, it's hard to imagine that professional road racing has greatly influenced cycling in the US

Quote:

Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike

The article in the OP doesn't provide much evidence that cycling is all that popular now in the U.K. if percentage of the population who are active cyclists is the metric. The only actual numbers cited about UK riders is that "More than two million people across the country now cycle at least once a week." This is in a country of 66+ million people.

All the other jabber in the article about rising percentages of bike sales or trendy items of bicycling "kit", or British victories in races doesn't signify as much as some posters here seem to believe about the percentage of people in the U.K. who use a bicycle for commuting, or about the percentage of people in the U.K. who use a bicycle as an alternative means of transportation in the U.K.

The article doesn't even provide any data about the percentage of people in the U.K. who give a darn about professional cycling.

Best answer IMO, @Gresp15C, to a possibly hypothetical OP. I have previously posted about my entry into a lifelong cycling lifestyle:

big chainring 

This is how I envision cycling in the UK. Tree covered lanes and carriageways winding through the little hamlets and shires with medieval relics scattered about the countryside. Villages with a pub on every corner with little old ladies serving the local brew. A bike shop in every town that makes their own frames with a big hearth and bellows in the back room. And the local constables patroling the streets on Raleigh DL-1's. And on the weekends the local cycling clubs have a 50, 100 or 12 hour time trials on the roads and through the shires described above.

I-Like-To-Bike

Interesting article perhaps about cycling trends on the streets of The City of London (The Square Mile) during the rush hour. The City of London (the Central Financial District) is only a tiny part of the metropolis of London and presumably does not necessarily represent the popularity of bicycling or bicycle use in metropolitan London, let alone the U.K.

I suppose someone could extrapolate these findings to represent nationwide cycling use in the same way that someone could extrapolate traffic observations taken at a handful of intersections in the Wall Street area of NYC to represent transportation popularity in the USA.

I-Like-To-Bike

No doubt that cycling is quite popular in your vision of the UK cycling environment.

Gresp15C

My family visited Scotland last summer. Here is how it is today, with suitable embellishment: Every habitable building on the coastline of the British Isles is a bed-and-breakfast. Every road is two lanes with a hard curb and no shoulder (sometimes the road runs right along a stone wall), packed bumper-to-bumper with tour buses. Motorcycles run up and down the center line. Minor roads are a single lane, also packed bumper-to-bumper with tour buses. There are Motorways, which are more similar to our freeways but smoother. Villages with a tourist destination on every corner with little old ladies serving parking tickets.

Yet their roads are safer than ours.

Yet we saw cyclists out there, braving the odds, and the motorists seem to respect them. There appears to be a growing network of separated bike paths, and some very nice riding that I'd like to try at some point.

jgwilliams

This is true. Except that I also mentioned that I have seen a substantial increase in cycling where I work, which is not in the city. Well, ok, I hadn't mentioned that I didn't work in the city. In fact I work in the West End of London and I've seen a vast increase in cyclists coming in from the suburbs during my years of cycle commuting.

I'm curious. It sounds like you don't want to believe what we're telling you? Or is it just that you want hard figures? I presume if you do a search you'll be able to find some figures. Here is one such example. Inevitably the stats tend to concentrate on London as it's our biggest city, but I suspect it is also a trend-setter.