dougmc

Bicycles generally involve sales tax, and they're always requiring maintenance which means wages for bike shop workers and sales tax for the parts needed.

Bike rides require fuel just like cars do ... so you stop at the fast food place and buy food. More sales tax.

Well, except for sales tax on the bikes and parts and food consumed (not all food is taxable, but much is), taxes on the wages of the people who work on the bike ...

Well, since you asked, the figure I've seen thrown around nationwide is 0.55% -- small, yes, but 55 times larger than what you guessed.

ModeratedUser150120149

The point of efforts to include bicycles in the mainstream includes many things, all of which cost the cyclist money. The key is that if cyclists want to be taken from the toy,or transport of last resort for those who are either too poor ot own a car or who have lost their license due to legal problems like DUI to the mainstream they have to act like mainstream vehicles. That includes following traffic laws, paying taxes on the bikes (licensing), and all the other things that motorists have to do. When a bunch of cyclists ask to have a highway shoulder made six feet wide for their benefit instead of the usual width they have to be part of the direct funding population, not some group that is perceived at sucking on the public treasury.


Some people say they are already part of the funding process because they pay property taxes. Do they really? And if they do so what? So, do motorists who also pay fuel, license, road tolls, personal property and other taxes.

The fact is that all governments work on money. So, when anyone refuses to participate in the funding process they are automatically excluding themselves from any meaningful participation in the government that determines their future.

A person can't rant about how unfair or unresponsive the "system" is when they refuse to participate in it. Doing charitable work is admirable but it is not advocacy.

The world can be changed. But, it won't be unless you spend time and effort understanding they currentt system and how it gets changed. Part of that includes the rules of politics. The first goal of a politician is to get elected. The second goal is to get reelected. Everything that does not directly affect that is way down the priority line.

bluefoxicy

Sales tax is miserable, and the sales tax on an object (even a car) is pathetic. $600 for the life of the vehicle, unless it's sold. Besides, this is general spending money that would be spent elsewhere, getting taken for sales tax and sucked into the wage depletion system (12 paychecks is all it takes to completely drain 1 paycheck into Social Security alone).

Try looking into the system when there's an upsurge in bicycle purchases and tell me where you see the increase in sales tax and wage tax brought in by it. Hint: there isn't one; the money coming from here disappears from there. Unlike the fuel tax and the driver's license renewals and the vehicle registrations at $120/year, which continue to pump additional money in just because you have a car; and of course any additional regulatory taxes the insurance companies pay on top of base wages and property tax. Plus some states charge property tax on an inflated estimate of a vehicle's value.

Food is often not taxed. Cyclists often buy Clif bars or the like, but some make peanut butter sandwiches or actual lunches. Many are enviro-hippies or health-hippies that wind up just buying base food and making their own stuff, which of course is fine by Clif Bar Co. because it's run by enviro-hippies and so their products sell to everyone. Probably one of the best companies on this planet to work for, too.


Still too small. We are going to throw ... let's say $5M/state, $2.5B, per year, for the 300,000,000 x 0.0055 == 3,000,000 x 0.55 == 30,000 x 55 == 1,500,000 + 150,000 == 1,650,000 people in the entire country, the 130,000 people in your state, the ... in MD there's 448 cities, 290 people in your city. At about $1,515 per cyclist per year.

Why are you entitled to effective tax advantage of probably more than your bike cost, again and again, every single year? Never mind that people just see millions or billions of dollars. Of course if we assume that everyone is advantaged (most people aren't and don't care; the argument that "you can" doesn't mean anything, it's like being handed fried beetles ... I buy you food, you chose to waste your money on buying your own food and don't eat that which I give you, just because you don't like eating bugs), it's $8.33 per person per year, including children. Again, a number most people won't care about.

This is a huge waste of money if the government isn't actively encouraging the social shift to go with it. The government is actively encouraging the opposite, and so is investing money in improving infrastructure which is unsuitable for the needs which the government is driving the country toward, and which supports transit methods that absolutely do not operate within the infrastructure the government is developing, and which besides are not popular and are being actively depopularized by the government.

This is not just a bad investment; it's a bad investment strategy. It's like an expensive hedge against the most likely to fail hedge investment. They are doing nothing to encourage the public to make use of infrastructure they are proposing, and doing almost everything to make that infrastructure worthless. The benefits are too small without corresponding social awareness programs, and they refuse to implement any such thing.

It is a failed strategy.

njkayaker

??? It seems likely that the fees for automobile licenses might not even cover the costs of administrating them.

What about children? Are you supposing they get licenses too? While you are at it, you should tax the free-loading pedestrians to pay for their sidewalks!

You said bicycle licenses worked somewhere "for some purposes" but you haven't provided any references.

It appears you think that licenses are some sort of magic wand!

The "something else" had better be good. You have't made your case that bicycle licenses are a good idea.

ModeratedUser150120149

This isn't grade school. You are expected to read the entire paragraph and the entire post before picking on one part of it. Oh yes, I did say that licensing is only one part of a solution. Licensing, in the end, may not be worth the effort. But, what you and others of a similar mind set are doing now obviously isn't working. So, stop ranting and come up with something else. I think I've said that before but you keep complaining that cyclists are being treated unfairly.

Well, surprise, surprise, on the road I, and almost all the cyclists I know get treated just as courteously and respectfully on our bikes as we do on our cars. Wonder what kind of aberrant behavior you use to be treated differently? Or,maybe none of the incidents you talk about actually happened at all and this is just entertainment for you to put some life in an otherwise dull life?

bluefoxicy

Apparently this is grade school, and on forums you bicker like school children.

Get a room.

njkayaker

No one is required to read anything you write!! It's your job to make it worth the effort to read your stuff!

The licensing was the only specific thing in your post. The rest of it was vague.

You can't even manage to avoid contradicting yourself (even in a single paragraph!!).

Citation needed.

??? Things work OK generally in NJ.

??? If your idea is bad, maybe you should come up with something that isn't bad!

Do you mean me? Your "you" is ambiguous.

??? So, then, what problem are you trying to fix?

Who the heck are you referring to with these "you's"??

You don't make sense!

bluefoxicy

[QUOTE=mikeybikes;12715735]
Since you mention charitable work, I assume this is targeted at myself. I do not rant about how unfair or unresponsive the "system" is. I have no reason to. You may not consider my charitable work advocacy, but it sure as hell does more for advocating cycling then your rants about funding and ideas about cycling licensing being posted on an Internet forum
[quote]

In other words, you can do something or you can *****. Either way, shut up.

Teaching kids to play Go and establishing Go clubs is a great way to improve peoples' lives, minimize crime, and generally set the next generation up to be more apt to handle the world. It gives them a basis for examining themselves, and for understanding the important things in life. Go is heavily reliant on a lot of odd things like balance and judgment, and is easily lost by thoughtlessness and greed and arrogance; as a Go teacher, you can recognize such things just by the moves a person plays, citing from a record of the game and the time between moves when he became bored, or frustrated, or overconfident, or greedy. Those with the self-control and the long-term planning required to play Go at a high level are, of course, somewhat better at life in general than people who are lazy, greedy, and demand everything with no trade-offs.

In the same way, charity work to teach people to ride bikes and be self-sufficient in small means gives them control over their lives, which makes them less apt for crime because criminal life is an admission of a lack of control over threats to your survival, and is itself another threat. Giving them the ability to get themselves from one point to another, especially under their own physical power, appeals to the self and to the communal aspect of human psychological need in a surprisingly great way.

People will often choose a path in life different from others. Look at Buddhism, a single system of philosophy that is in some cases taken as a religion, in other cases simply a manner of philosophy and a path of self-enrichment. Various sects of Buddhism have various thoughts on such things as food: Some follow strict vegetarianism, while others accept excess food but will only accept meat that was not specifically slaughtered for them and would be otherwise wasted. Inside the same system of Buddhism, you will find teachings that give you the option to follow one path or another, holding no less of a man who takes a small set of core ideals for his life but providing deeper, more focused, more demanding values that someone may follow as a personal challenge.

That is only one system of philosophy, although its particular diversity and mutual acceptance makes it a good example. Still, there are many valid systems of philosophy to chose from, and many good religions. In the same way, there are many personal paths to take within the same exact philosophy: we all may hold a set of base values, and even come right down to the particulars, all wanting to help the community, to reach the same common goal. But some of us will spend our time starting cycling clubs and helping poor people become self-sufficient on bikes; others of us will start Go clubs and teach philosophical concepts based on the demands of the game; and still others will take more fundamental routes, teaching people to budget and to understand cost-benefit in shopping, paying more to get better clothes and furniture and the like rather than purchasing poorly-made necessities repeatedly unto bankruptcy.

All of these things are valid and, as we can see in the development of a game of Go, the whole board is made of many small battles, many isolated peaceful exchanges, all coming together to form one bigger picture, all both immediately and eventually influencing each other. To make the small, isolated parts of the board work together is to form a complete, working, and strong whole; to fight over them, to worry too much about one and ignore the others, is to build a strong position that only expands so much, and lose much all over the rest of the board until you are left to ruin.

All great things start as a single stone, and from there as growth around those isolated stones, until they grow from the corners to encompass the entire board, and to meet with each other.

dougmc

Your point was "bicycles don't generate any revenue". I pointed out that they did and gave examples.

You said "gas tax, as minimal revenue as that is" -- why does that matter, but a "miserable sales tax" doesn't?

Sales tax on a car in Texas is 6%. Average price for a new car is around $29,000. So even in Texas, that sales tax on a car is almost $1800 -- 3x the figure you came up with. And as you suggested, Texas will collect sales tax again on used car sales too.

(You can do better with your made-up figures.)

And looking specifically at Texas (where I know how the finances work) cyclists mostly ride on city streets -- not highways. Well, city streets see zero of that 6% automotive sales tax, as that goes to the state, and the state pays nothing for city streets. Gasoline taxes? Goes to the state, and the Texas Constitution mandates that it only go to roads in the state highway system (and education) -- well, these are the roads cyclists rarely use. Registration? To the state.

At least the bikes are (sales) taxed at the full local rate -- 8.125% in Austin -- and the extra 2.125% goes to the city and county, who do pay for the city roads that cyclists use. (Car sales don't pay the local portion of the sales tax.)

... in Texas at least, the registrations aren't that high, but more importantly, they don't pump money into the city roads that cyclists use. Not a penny.

There's a reason I said fast food. My point wasn't that bicycles have an impact as large as cars -- my point was that your statement that "bicycles don't generate any revenue" was patently incorrect.

Aren't these the same sort of people who make bio-diesel and similar things, which doesn't pay gasoline tax? Hippies also like electric cars -- no gasoline tax there.

If you say so.

bluefoxicy

I hope you realize that making your own fuel is illegal due to evasion of fuel tax; and that there is discussion on adding a fuel tax to electricity when it is used to charge a car.

kvnrvn

Let's be realistic. The "gas tax" doesn't even cover the actual cost of gas when you include the costs of pollution, defense in the middle east, etc.

Brontide

Yes, but the government is already taxing my fuel, and I think alcohol taxes are higher than 30c/gallon last I checked.

dougmc

In the US, though they do it. In the UK I think they can make up to 2499 liters/year tax free?Really, the usually proposed solution is a per-mile tax rather than a per kWh tax. But more to the point, 1) the government wants to encourage electric cars, and 2) they haven't reached a critical mass yet where it's a big deal, and 3) the people making the proposals either haven't done the math, or don't care that the math doesn't work out (to them, it's a matter of fairness.)

... a lot like the situation with bicycles. Yes, people talk of taxing bicycles beyond sales tax, but it's never really happened. The government often tries to encourage their use, and they just haven't reached the critical mass yet (what was the figure you gave? 0.01%?) where the issue might actually become important. And when somebody does require bike registration as a form of revenue generation ... it doesn't even pay for the program to do it and gets discontinued.

Either way, once gasoline taxes pay for the roads, then this would make more sense. Triple or quadruple the US gasoline taxes and we might be there.

(Though it's not clear that they'll ever tax them like cars, however popular they become.)

dynodonn 

According to this article, cities should use the considerable amount of money that they would save in reduced street maintenance outlay to fund bicycling infrastructure.

Again according to the article, cities could build some very nice bicycling infrastructure for the fraction of the cost of street repair caused by motor vehicles.

noisebeam

The bottom line is that bike paths are for the primary benefit of motorists, so if one want to argue who is or is not paying 'fair share' it seems clear to me if narrowing the argument to who pays it should be motorists.

Digital_Cowboy

If that is true, than please explain why all of the people who go around to the various restaurants collecting used cooking oil to convert into bio-fuel aren't being fined and/or jailed? There have been plenty of shows on TV explaining to people how to convert used cooking oil into bio-fuel and how to convert ordinary diesel engines to burn it. There have even been stories on the local news about doing just that.

ItsJustMe

I pay for more than my fair share of roads for cars. Can I reallocate it towards bicycle projects? If not, then he seems to be saying that the users of certain types of vehicles are responsible for their own infrastructure.

I'd love to see them implement that for cars. If car drivers got a tax on them that included all the externalities of driving a car, hardly anyone could afford it, except that if things were fair, a lot of other taxes and the price of a bunch of stuff (like medical costs) would shift into the cost of running your car. For instance you'd have to pay for having the ambulances and medical services and dispatchers and police and other emergency services ready to go, in the cost of running a car, instead of just via other taxes as they are now.

Digital_Cowboy

Let's also not forget traffic lights AND the electricity to run said lights. How much does it cost a year to run those lights? How much does it cost to replace the bulbs when they burn out?

The Human Car

We need a tax system that does not go into a general pot but into a "user fee" system just like they do for motorists. It's not sales tax plus tax for the transportation fund, it's just a tax for funding specialized program. All we need to do is get the sales tax from bike shops to go into a specialized fund and call it a user fee. If it works for cars why not us?

njkayaker

What "user fee" for motorists?

Is anything set up like this? If a shop sells bicycles and other stuff, what kind of extra book-keeping would be required to separate the bicycle products from the other stuff? What additional auditing work would be required by the state to make sure the right amount goes to the right place?

jputnam

That is one of the great disadvantages of more highways -- they mean more trips, which means a higher load on the general fund revenues that subsidize construction, maintenance, operation, and externalities of highways. (Externalities such as trauma centers, emergency response, pollution cleanup, long-term care for TBI victims, etc.)

If cars paid their own way, governments would have good reason to want more vehicle travel. Instead, many governments are adopting explicit goals of reducing vehicle miles traveled because motor vehicle trips are such a burden on general funds.



That's an excellent description of transportation policy over the past sixty years -- we've poured subsidy after subsidy into infrastructure for motor vehicles, constantly driving up the amount of driving, and escalating the costs endlessly, creating budget crises that justify tax increases. And, since the tax increases are more often than not general fund taxes, they increase the net subsidy to motorists from non-motorists with every round of crisis.

jputnam

I'm unaware of any legal mechanism that would allow me to refuse to participate. There's no box on my 1040 that says "I'm a cyclist, refund the money that would go to roads." There's no cyclist exemption to my property taxes or sales taxes. I'm participating plenty.

Of course, I'm also participating as an elected official who has to help balance our municipal budget every year, which includes the endless struggle to cut enough money out of social services, police protection, utilities and maintenance that we can divert more general fund money into local streets, since all vehicle-related funding sources combined cover less than a third of the cost of maintaining city streets.

crhilton

The gas tax and wheel taxes work this way. The funding goes into highway funds and only goes to roads. They get serious about protecting the funds. When the time comes to make cuts the money is just off limits.

It's not really that hard... The hardest part might be getting department stores to do the accounting honestly and not ring up bicycles as "miscellaneous toy."

I'd be all for something like this as long as it doesn't become a disadvantage for local shops compared to department store bikes.

njkayaker

The roads, like canals, like the railroads, were subsidized by the government because a for-profit business would have little to do with such ventures. Encouraging the market for cars after WWII was a significant part of the US becoming the economic world leader in the second half of the prior century.

And people overwhelmingly like cars. Even the Europeans, including the bike-riding Dutch, like cars (and their government subsidizes roadways too).

It's not at all clear that the US government was doing anything (regarding transportation) that its citizens did not approve of.

njkayaker

Yes, there is the gas tax, which doesn't cover the costs and which bicycling has nothing equivalent to. "Wheel taxes"??

The amount of taxes recovered from this might not be enough. Places would have to make changes to their accounting programs to accommodate the change.

Seems like may local shops have enough trying to run a business without the extra work for this fussy accounting. Some things probably (clothing?) would be except, which means that places would have to keep track of what things belonged in which category.

Outside of fuel, this isn't really done for automobiles and it would seem more worth it for that market.