rydabent

First of all I would like to point out the fact that probably 99% of cyclist own cars, and therefore pay road taxes. So--I dont really get the reason why some people get their underlovelies in a bunch over cyclist using streets and hiways.

Now may I point out that these tax paying cyclist that drive cars and pay taxes for our roads are banned from a lot of roads and hiways. Generally cyclist are banned from the interstate hiways. Some states allow cyclist to ride the interstates especially where there are no other roads. The thing I see is the fact that interstate hiways almost alway have huge wide shoulders where a cyclist could safely ride.

ratdog

For the record, a lot of people that pay taxes don't even own a car.

kmv2

This topic is discussed in like every A&S thread.

High Roller

I agree with those who have stated that human-powered transportation is a basic right, not a privilege subject to taxation by the government. And the last thing we need is yet another barrier discouraging people from cycling.

If cyclists are to be assessed a vehicle registration fee to pay their fair share of road maintenance costs, such a fee should take into account that damage to roads is proportional to vehicle weight. I’ll fork over $1 per vehicle pound per year for my bicycle if motorists will do likewise for their vehicle of choice.

dougmc

I don't believe this to be true. I think the figure (in this country) is probably closer to 80% (and it's probably even lower outside this country), though it probably varies massively from area to area.

Cases where somebody is particularly (much more than average, anyways) likely to own a bike but not a car --

-- children
-- college students
-- homeless/extremely poor people
-- people who live in an extremely densely populated area like NYC

Personally, I've got quite a few friends who don't own cars. Of course, I've got lots of cycling friends and live in a college town, so my situation is rather atypical.

Still, whether it's 80% or 99% or something else, we do agree that in in the majority of cases, cyclists in the US own (at least partially, such as a one car family) a car as well, so yes, this argument is quite weak.

But it's not meant to be a strong argument. It's merely a feeble attempt at a justification for their prejudice that doesn't sound quite as selfish as "I don't like them slowing me down" and "money spent on them doesn't benefit me, therefore I think it's a waste."

unterhausen

EU is considering tax credits for cyclists

digger

Looking at the first point from the perspective of a non-cyclist, then:

I already pay taxes to use the road on my Ford f150, so why should I have to pay taxes on my Motorcycle, Smartcar, Matrix, etc?

I think it a weak argument to state that,"a cyclist, who owns a car already pays tax on the car thus shouldn't need to for the bicycle."

What I would suggest is to state that, the reason motorists pay tax to use their automobile is because of the high social cost of motor vehicle use - rescue, care, treatment, policing, amount of infrastructure required, environment, etc.
That is why MV owners pay tax, bicycles and their owners simply do not account for such things.

According to Transport CAnada the social cost of automobile use amounts to $64.7 billion dollars per year. Would it be unreasonable to state that since the USA has 10 times the population, that automobile use amounts to $650 billion?

I'm sure that the US equivalent to StatsCan would have those figures.

lenA

I think part of the reasoning there is that it can be many miles between exits and they are usually fenced.

B. Carfree

Every four years my city passes a new bond to repair the damage to our roads caused by motorists. (We don't have weather-induced damage.) My wife did a "back of the envelope" calculation for how much we save our local government every time we choose to not use a car for our errands, but I forgot what number she came up with (not that it matters). We were thinking that cyclists should receive a rebate for every mile. Now, some will say that many of those miles are just recreational, which is true. However, only 20% of all motoring miles are for commuting, so it's not like the recreational motorists aren't a factor in breaking down our roads.

It's unlikely to happen, but the discussion would do a world of good for getting rid of that refrain of ignorant motorists: The cyclists aren't paying their fair share.

gpsblake

Not always... Ever been riding on an interstate when road construction is going on, the shoulder disappears and gets replaced by jersey walls? Or an exit every mile? Or cloverleaf interchanges? I love bicycling but banning bikes from interstates in the east and major cities in the west is just being smart.

Chris516

I would love to hear the number your wife came up with. I am not saying that to question her. I just would love to know the number.

I-Like-To-Bike

I'd be more interested in how she calculated the number that represents "how much we save our local government every time we choose to not use a car for our errands." What she included and what she left out.

dougmc

You must have some mighty remarkable roads then -- in the rest of the world, they have weather-induced damage, as well as damage caused by nature even if it's not exactly weather.

As for weather related damage, rain can cause erosion, which damages roads. Cold days can have rain get into the road and freeze, cracking it. (In Oregon I wouldn't expect too much of that, but it shouldn't be unheard of.) Alternating hot and cold days probably weaken roads as well over time.

Certainly, even paved paths that *never* have motor vehicles on them still need maintenance, and if that doesn't happen they'll deteriorate to the point of being unusable in a few decades even if nobody uses them.

So it's not reasonable to look only at the damage caused by specific vehicles, as that's not the only damage done to roads. It would also be reasonable to look at damage caused by Mother Nature (by whatever mechanism) and divide that up among the users of the path if we're worrying about which groups should be paying for a path's maintenance.

xenologer

What does ownership of a car have to do with taxes; more specifically the funds allocated to roads? people get taxed on lots of various things; but are the taxes from car expenses specifically earmarked for road maintenance or something (as opposed to schools, etc)?

digger

From what I glean, regarding the complaints I've read in various media streams, is that some non-cyclists feel that cyclists are getting a free ride ( pardon the pun) and should be paying for the use of the road.

My argument, as I outlined in post 7, is that motorists pay to offset the high social costs of motor vehicle ownership, they do not pay for the use of the road itself.

rydabent

xenologer

Here we have wheel tax. We started it 15 years ago at fifty cents a wheel. Now a pick up has aroung $60 in wheel taxes. All of that money is supposed to be used on streets. Yah sure!!!!! Gas tax is supposed to be used for roads too, but Im sure that that tax is used else where. Again the problem is greedy b'crats that get their grubby hands on tax money and spend it where they want, rather than where it is intended.

I-Like-To-Bike

Again, another empty headed rant.

Chris516

I am one of them. I have never owned a car.

wphamilton

Wise, considering how much a cyclist saves them in not driving.

bluegoatwoods

It would also be beneficial to us in that it would give us a societal 'thumbs up'. It would help to deflate the ignorant and selfish attitude that labels us as some sort of freeloaders.

It would instead lend support to the notion that human powered transportation is superior to fossil fueled transportation.

crackerdog

My property taxes pay for the roads in our town so everyone pays almost equally. We get less than $180,000 in gas taxes and that gets eaten up pretty quickly when I think of the few times they plow the roads when it occasionally snows, spread sand on icy days, re stripe every summer, cut the brush on the sides of the roads (which they don't do for any of our non-motorized trails). Now if cars paid anywhere near what they cost us for pollution, emergency services, wars for the petroleum, oil and gas runoff into our local waterways, etc. then I would be willing to raise my taxes on my bicycle. Our freeways here can only be used by automobiles and yet they are not completely funded by gas taxes, why not?

atbman

Because it has been politcally impossible to raise the federal gas tax for about 30 years - can't think why.

wphamilton

Honestly, I don't think I'd mind paying a reasonable road use tax for the bicycle, but I'd to howl to high heaven if it singled out bicycles and wasn't part of a general package realistically aimed at funding road maintenance.

hotbike

I want to remind everyone that the Truckers with the "APPORTIONED" plates do indeed pay *real* road taxes, while the majority of motorists do not.

Pedaleur

You could move to Virginia:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...e3d_story.html