SpeshulEd 

I'll be happy to pay taxes for bike lanes when cars stop using them for parking.

Flinstone

Probably because many people who actually cycle very seriously or often, don't like or want those bike lanes and even petition against them. It's drivers and very casual or merely potential cyclists (people who own a bike but don't use it) who don't yet realize the danger and want cyclists to be (forced) into those lanes. I have seen some situations where bike lanes integrated into a road system can be useful, but usually or at least often it's dangerous. This argument is another great reason not to tax cyclists. We don't want to pay for to build or own death traps and be forced into them.

Your argument would apply better to trails, but then why not tax use of sidewalks with shoes too?

wphamilton

The revenue stream from taxing bikes would be so small that they'll go in the hole on administration and enforcement. There are some examples backing that up but you'll have to dig around for it.

Secondly, if the rationale is to pay a fair share for road maintenance, bear in mind that damage to roads scales with the cube of axle weight. So a car weighing 10 times as much as a bike on each axle damages the road 1000 times as much as the bike does. And then cars are driven a lot more miles than bikes so multiply that by 10 again. So OK 1/10,000 of the car's registration fees might be a fair tax.

StanSeven

I'm an advocate of those that use things like roads, parks, transportation, etc., should pay their fair share. For example I'm against subsidized bus fares and think that everyone that rides the bus should pay apprpriately.

I'm normally against bike lanes as well but this road is an exception. It's a four lane, non-divided road through a residential area. It has lots of twists and turns and is a favorite commuter route for both cyclists that ride all the way to work and those that ride to a nearby subway station. The lanes were built mostly at serious cyclists request. Cars rountinely do 50 mph in a 35 mph zone. Combine that with no shoulder, no median in the middle, and drivers rushing to work and home and it's dangerous.

SpeshulEd 

I have never met a cyclist that didn't appreciate bike lanes and better biking infrastructure.

Drew Eckhardt 

Cyclists are already paying more than our fair share with road damage proportional to the 4th power of axle weight and the majority of road costs coming from general funds cyclists' pay into with our income tax and other property tax.

Although a 3000 pound car does 50,000 times the damage of a 200 pound bike + rider combination, the car driver is paying less than double what the cyclist does.

wphamilton

Yep 4th power (I thought cube for some reason). It would be fair if we paid 1/50000 of the tag fees that cars do, if the local government truly wants to go to the trouble to collect it.

dwbstr

When people see a busy road widened by a couple of feet to the right of the fog line and bicycles in that space they often think it was done with their gas tax money for the benefit of cyclists. It's really done to keep heavy vehicles like semis away from the edge of the pavement where their weight can break it up. In the long run it saves money. Cyclists may benefit but only incidentally.

Jaywalk3r

I have no reason to doubt your numbers, but I would appreciate a source if you have one, for my own future reference. I'm rather averse to using the "some guy on the Internet told me ..." citation!

wphamilton

Just google "power of axle weight"!

https://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/TD/EA/pol...ent_damage.pdf

rekmeyata

Yet it cost an average of $130,000 to build just one mile of a bike path and we all want that done for free at no cost to the cyclist. Pedestrian & Bicycle Information Center

I ride bikes and I think cyclists should pay a one time registration fee, a tax will you, based on the percentage of the cost of the bike like 5% of the purchase price of the bike or the value of the bike if used, and this fee would not only go for the cost to help build bike paths but also for theft recovery. This would only apply to new bikes, used bikes would be excluded UNLESS the person wanting to buy a used bike wanted to voluntarily pay it for the theft protection, which would be open to anyone with bikes currently.

Your talking about 6.1 billion dollars of new bicycles bought in the USA in 2014, Industry Overview 2014 - National Bicycle Dealers Association That mounts to 305 million dollars that could have been generated for bike paths every year...depending on sales of course. This doesn't even include used bike sales. The registration fee would go to whatever state the bike was sold in, and on internet sales the fee goes to whatever state the purchaser lived in. 305 million dollars a year could go a long ways in providing more paths and lanes for our safety and make the USA become more of a cycling nation.

I'm sorry for all of you who think you're entitled, you're not and should pay your way, it's only fair.

Jseis 

I'm on a planning team evaluating a 1.5 mile extension of a 10 mile (separated path) trail system and fully expect the complex extension involving wetlands, arterial crossings, road lane adjustments, etc. will cost upward of 1 mil for Phase 1 and another mil for Phase 2. Will it be worth it? Heck yes as it'll provide access to another 4 miles of trail. You've got to bring in many partners to spread the $$ and most cyclists haven't a clue of the work it takes to build something that they'll enjoy for decades.

bakes1

no1mad 

Moved to A & S from General Cycling.

dksix

I have a strange memory that patterns and oddities stick out in my mind. The most common trait of vehicles that crowd me in this area is window/bumper stickers where as commercial vehicles seem to most often give me a wide berth.

Milton Keynes

Sorry, I mean 1-ton and up.

Milton Keynes

I would happily pay for a registration if we actually had some bike paths around here. Closest one is something like 25 miles away, about 8 miles of it is free to ride on, built by donations and reclaimed from an old railroad line. Past that 8 miles it's run by the Dept. of Wildlife and Parks and you have to pay a fee to use it. So there's no need to pay a tax on bicycles to support those trails. But as it is, I shouldn't have to pay to ride my bicycle on city streets and county roads which are already paid for by my taxes. My bicycle isn't wearing potholes into the road like all the big diesel dually pickups running around here. Besides, I'm already paying for registrations for three different motor vehicles, so the city/county/state ought to give me a break for riding a vehicle which is not going to cause any wear and tear on their streets and roads.

rekmeyata

As with anything taxed nothing is going to perfect for all the people. You see this with the way schools get money all time. Obviously you live in an area where cycling isn't very popular by even the least bit or there would be paths built, so unfortunately you would be more left out then others. I pay taxes to support people who could be working but aren't and I get no benefit from that either, but I don't feel entitled so it's not an issue for me not to get money from the government or not getting bike paths.

PaulRivers

Bikes shouldn't be taxed like cars simply because the overhead of adding and collecting taxes on them is large compared to the amount of money collected.

It costs a lot of money to add a special tax to things. Imagine the overhead in collecting registration fees, yearly fees, etc on bikes like you do with cars. But with cars the average car (new) costs $15,000 to $30,000). The average bike people buy is under $1,000. Can you imagine how little actual money you'd get out of bike taxes if they built a separate dmv building for bikes?

Bikes are already taxed with sales tax. It's not like they're some special category that's not taxed.

Edit: I do see some interesting arguments about if you live somewhere that's building a lot of bike-specific trails (so not just biking on city streets) which get expensive. The thing that gets into is if basically - if government was entirely fair and didn't pay for anything extra that it didn't have to, then I'd be ok with an extra charge for bikes that went directly into paying for offroad bike paths. But our governments are not like that. Every time a rich team wants a new sports stadium, somehow our government always say "oh ok we'll pay for part of it" which is rediculous with the insane amount of money these teams are making. There are a whole bunch of other corporate welfare / cronyism things that our government spends money on that I don't like.

So to be totally honest - I'm against taxes on bikes like cars because I feel like it's one of the few graft things that benefits me. If you could get rid of all the other government graft somehow, then I'd be ok with it in situations where it's only used to build new bike trails. But if I go out and say I'm ok with that, I'm sure all I'd end up with in reality would be no change in paying for rich people's stadiums, but now I'd also be saddled with additional bike tax, so I'm against any additional bike tax.

Chief

OP,
Lot's of hair-splitting answers about who pays more and how taxes are used/abused... but the fundamental reason that cycling cannot/should not/may not be taxed is that humans (using human power) have a basic right to travel freely on public roadways. To tax cycling would be to negate the "freely" part. (Ugh!)

Chris0516

I am ready!!!!
Not to mention. Instances like (former)NYPD officer knocking a cyclist off their bike during a Critical Mass ride a couple years ago. An officer whereever. Will not use their police cruiser/SUV to arbitrarily run a vehicle off the road. Except in a police chase.
I am not a fan of bike lanes for, not just the problem noted. But also when motorists' 'drift' into the bike lane. So, I agree with the main point of this statement.

Jaywalk3r

So, what's your plan to funnel all of the benefits of bicycle infrastructure back to bicyclists who pay for those benefits? How will increased property values be paid back to bicyclists? How will decreased road maintenance costs due to decreased traffic congestion be given back to cyclists. When the decreased traffic congestion results in less time spent in cars, how will the resulting increased productivity of the labor force be paid back to the bicyclists who paid for the bike infrastructure? Since bike infrastructure results in more jobs per dollar spent than car infrastructure, what sort of cut of the extra tax revenue does your plan give back to the bicyclists who paid for the infrastructure?

Bicyclists already more than pay their own way, which is more than can be said for motorists. Motor vehicle use is heavily subsidized in the US. Since the benefits of bicycle infrastructure is not limited to bicyclists, neither should be the costs.

Jaywalk3r

Emphasis mine.

I just wanted to emphasize the "bike-specific" part, which I would assume to not include multi-use paths (MUPs). Around here, walkers and runners use the MUPs far more than bicyclists do. We don't have any bicycle specific paths (i.e., cycle tracks), except on one of the local university campuses, and, to be fair, they are also dominated by people walking.

rekmeyata

We do have the right to travel freely on ROADS built for cars, but now you're asking to build a separate road just for bikes, and that's where the freely travel idea should end.

blue192

I live in Ottawa Canada and can actually remember when there was 0 tax on bicycles the price tag was what you paid. That is unless you bought a bicycle that was over 1000$ (not including the acc). Oh boy times have changed and Dalton McGuinty changed it. I feel old get off my lawn now!