5 ms·

My beef is that cyclists increase traffic congestion but don’t pay taxes to fund the infrastructure they’re using. People that drive cars pay taxes on gas and

My beef is that cyclists increase traffic congestion but don’t pay taxes to fund the infrastructure they’re using. People that drive cars pay taxes on gas and their vehicle to fund and maintain streets but city councils around the country are expropriating lanes for cyclist use. Cyclists should be required to financially support the infrastructure they’re using in some way. Perhaps a flat tax on bicycle sales in a municipality would do it.

multiplegeorges 4y ago
> My beef is that cyclists increase traffic congestion but don’t pay taxes to fund the infrastructure they’re using. Not sure where you are, but where I am my property taxes go to road maintenance and gas taxes don't even come CLOSE to covering the cost of road/highway maintenance. If anything, drivers are hugely subsidized by the state.
- MisterMower 4y ago
  I’m sorry your municipality’s finances are poorly managed, but that’s not an argument for giving cyclists a free ride when it comes to paying for what they use. Both drivers and cyclists should pay for their usage. I don’t think my original comment implied they should be treated differently.
  - comte7092 4y ago
    >I’m sorry your municipality’s finances are poorly managed I can almost guarantee that your municipality doesn’t collect enough gas taxes to cover road maintenance. Regardless, cars do significant more damage to roads than do bicycles and represent an infinitely larger proportion of usage. The cost of maintaining bicycle infrastructure is infinitesimal in comparison.
  - avianlyric 4y ago
    How much do you think cyclists should pay? An actual concrete figure for your specific region, how much damage do cycles do to your local roads? Also has it occurred to you that most cyclists are also drivers?
    - MisterMower 4y ago
      Something more than they're paying now, which is zero. Figure the cost to build and maintain bike lanes, divide that cost by the number of bikes sold in a municipality. Assess a tax on each bicycle sale in that municipality equal to whatever that number comes out to. Or better yet, make cyclists go through the same process that vehicles go through to get tags. Any cyclist using a bike lane without a valid tag affixed to it should get a ticket, just like a driver would receive when driving an unregistered vehicle, or a vehicle found on the road containing dyed farm fuel. It's amazing I have to keep pointing this out: bike lanes and infrastructure are NOT free. It doesn't matter how little damage they do to the pavement: the pavement was built and maintained using funds paid for by drivers. They are usually created by expropriating infrastructure from drivers, or by using funds designed to support new infrastructure for vehicles. Cyclists who drive pay taxes on fuel and on their vehicle, so I'm not sure why it would matter if a cyclist is also a driver. By definition, if they're driving a car legally, they've paid to use the roads, unlike when they use their bicycle in the bike lane.
myroon5 4y ago
Keep in mind cyclists don't really damage roads: https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/ https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...
- MisterMower 4y ago
  But they require dedicated lanes in many places and pay no taxes to fund those lanes. The pavement may not degrade as fast because cyclists don’t weigh much, but the road still needs painted and maintained. Cracks need sealed, potholes need filled. Weather cycles do as much damage as traffic.
  - myroon5 4y ago
    > Weather cycles do as much damage as traffic In most places where the weather is nice enough for biking to be popular enough to matter tax-wise (most of the highest percentage American biking cities are on the west coast), I doubt that, but feel free to source your claims
  - avianlyric 4y ago
    > Cracks need sealed, potholes need filled. Weather cycles do as much damage as traffic. Cracks and potholes only form due to heavy vehicles driving over them and deforming the surface. Something a cyclist isn’t heavy enough to cause. Without cracks and potholes, weather damage is basically zero. While we’re at, why don’t we make pedestrians pay for the sidewalks and pavements? They get to use those without paying a cent, if they refuse to pay, rip the damn things up, they’re taking up valuable space for more car lanes.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- notacoward 4y ago
  I don't think it's just about damage and maintenance. Before roads are maintained they must be built. Why should the amortized cost of building not be distributed across all beneficiaries?
thwayunion 4y ago
> My beef is that cyclists increase traffic congestion but don’t pay taxes to fund the infrastructure they’re using. Okay, let's play the measuring game. I have paid over $200,000 in income taxes this year so far, as well as another massive heap in property taxes. I also own two cars on which I pay various taxes. What's you income and property tax bill to date? Regarding gas specifically: 1. There are zero states where gas taxes pay for all road construction and maintenance. Zero. None. 2. More importantly, motorists generally have no sense of how much their gas is subsidized. For example, a huge portion of that $200K of income taxes goes towards our military, who spend a lot of money to kill people and/or maintain the threat of killing people. That violence and/or threat of violence is absolutely necessary for you to maintain your petroleum-dependent lifestyle. (Of course, my taxes are trivial compared to other costs, such as those to the victims of the violence necessary to maintain US energy needs.) And that's before other issues like the environment and climate change (separately), the SPR, etc. etc.
- notch656a 4y ago
  Unless they're only consuming locally produced goods, pedestrians and cyclists are also availing themselves of subsidized gas at the hands of the machines of violence. Lets not pretend they're morally superior. And in fact, they are still almost always dependent on tractor-trailer compatible roads and gas guzzling vehicles, they just offload the petroleum consuming dirty work to others.
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    No. If the US didn't use gas for personal transport or pleasure vehicles, its domestic supply would be more than sufficient.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      In the long run the domestic supply is a non-renewable resource. Even excluding use of "pleasure vehicles", there is no scenario where the domestic supply is viable at current rate pedestrians and cyclists are consuming it in the long run. >domestic supply Interestingly, US has been a net exporter of petroleum for the past 2 years. Even including use of 'pleasure vehicles' like those that take grandma to the doctor from her country home so she doesn't die. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
avianlyric 4y ago
Road damage is proportional to the square of vehicle axle weight. The difference in weight between a bike and a car is so great, that bike do effectively zero damage to roads. A high quality segregated cycle lane requires effectively no maintenance. It won’t develop potholes, it won’t need resurfacing, it just needs cleaning. A standard road will need regular maintenance and resurfacing for its entire life. You could make cyclists cover the full cost of their infrastructure usage, but you would spend far more on collecting the money, than would actually collect. Off normal road, cycle damage is measured in cents/pence per year. > cyclists increase traffic congestion So you think putting that person in car is going to reduce congestion? Cyclists are people too, many of them cycle to go somewhere, if they didn’t cycle they would drive. > People that drive cars pay taxes on gas and their vehicle to fund and maintain streets but city councils around the country are expropriating lanes for cyclist use. No municipality in world makes drivers pay the full cost of externalities they create. Most municipalities don’t even make drivers cover the cost of road building and maintenance, zero make them cover the costs created from the pollution and environmental damage they cause.
- notch656a 4y ago
  >>Road damage is proportional to the square of vehicle axle weight >No municipality in world makes drivers pay the full cost of externalities they creat The interesting conclusion here: 1) Semis / tractor-trailer and delivery vehicles are then vastly underpaying for their externalities as their gas tax and vehicle-specific charges don't tend to be square of weight. 2) By vastly underpaying, the clients of those buying goods transported by these vehicles are vastly underpaying for these externalities. 3) Exclusive pedestrians/bicyclists, who are highly dependent on large delivery vehicles to take goods from point of manufacture to places they can access via walking/biking, are vastly underpaying for these externalities.
  - avianlyric 4y ago
    > By vastly underpaying, the clients of those buying goods transported by these vehicles are vastly underpaying for these externalities. > 3) Exclusive pedestrians/bicyclists, who are highly dependent on large delivery vehicles to take goods from point of manufacture to places they can access via walking/biking, are vastly underpaying for these externalities. Are you honestly trying to say that all, or the majority of, HGVs on the road are exclusively delivering items for pedestrians and cyclists? Or that if you drive a car, your local supermarket no longer needs HGVs for delivery? Or that moving those goods in hundreds of private cars is more efficient than moving them in a single HGV?
francisofascii 4y ago
Again, the "bikes don't pay taxes" argument is another example of a motorist's sense of unfairness without acknowledging the vast difference between cyclists and cars. If you were to compare the mileage, width requirements, safely concerns, noise and emissions pollution between the two, cyclists would represent about about 1% of the total cost. So sure, charge a $1/year to own a bike.

multiplegeorges 4y ago

> My beef is that cyclists increase traffic congestion but don’t pay taxes to fund the infrastructure they’re using. Not sure where you are, but where I am my property taxes go to road maintenance and gas taxes don't even come CLOSE to covering the cost of road/highway maintenance. If anything, drivers are hugely subsidized by the state.

MisterMower 4y ago
I’m sorry your municipality’s finances are poorly managed, but that’s not an argument for giving cyclists a free ride when it comes to paying for what they use. Both drivers and cyclists should pay for their usage. I don’t think my original comment implied they should be treated differently.
- comte7092 4y ago
  >I’m sorry your municipality’s finances are poorly managed I can almost guarantee that your municipality doesn’t collect enough gas taxes to cover road maintenance. Regardless, cars do significant more damage to roads than do bicycles and represent an infinitely larger proportion of usage. The cost of maintaining bicycle infrastructure is infinitesimal in comparison.
- avianlyric 4y ago
  How much do you think cyclists should pay? An actual concrete figure for your specific region, how much damage do cycles do to your local roads? Also has it occurred to you that most cyclists are also drivers?
  - MisterMower 4y ago
    Something more than they're paying now, which is zero. Figure the cost to build and maintain bike lanes, divide that cost by the number of bikes sold in a municipality. Assess a tax on each bicycle sale in that municipality equal to whatever that number comes out to. Or better yet, make cyclists go through the same process that vehicles go through to get tags. Any cyclist using a bike lane without a valid tag affixed to it should get a ticket, just like a driver would receive when driving an unregistered vehicle, or a vehicle found on the road containing dyed farm fuel. It's amazing I have to keep pointing this out: bike lanes and infrastructure are NOT free. It doesn't matter how little damage they do to the pavement: the pavement was built and maintained using funds paid for by drivers. They are usually created by expropriating infrastructure from drivers, or by using funds designed to support new infrastructure for vehicles. Cyclists who drive pay taxes on fuel and on their vehicle, so I'm not sure why it would matter if a cyclist is also a driver. By definition, if they're driving a car legally, they've paid to use the roads, unlike when they use their bicycle in the bike lane.

myroon5 4y ago

Keep in mind cyclists don't really damage roads: https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/ https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...

MisterMower 4y ago
But they require dedicated lanes in many places and pay no taxes to fund those lanes. The pavement may not degrade as fast because cyclists don’t weigh much, but the road still needs painted and maintained. Cracks need sealed, potholes need filled. Weather cycles do as much damage as traffic.
- myroon5 4y ago
  > Weather cycles do as much damage as traffic In most places where the weather is nice enough for biking to be popular enough to matter tax-wise (most of the highest percentage American biking cities are on the west coast), I doubt that, but feel free to source your claims
- avianlyric 4y ago
  > Cracks need sealed, potholes need filled. Weather cycles do as much damage as traffic. Cracks and potholes only form due to heavy vehicles driving over them and deforming the surface. Something a cyclist isn’t heavy enough to cause. Without cracks and potholes, weather damage is basically zero. While we’re at, why don’t we make pedestrians pay for the sidewalks and pavements? They get to use those without paying a cent, if they refuse to pay, rip the damn things up, they’re taking up valuable space for more car lanes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
notacoward 4y ago
I don't think it's just about damage and maintenance. Before roads are maintained they must be built. Why should the amortized cost of building not be distributed across all beneficiaries?

thwayunion 4y ago

> My beef is that cyclists increase traffic congestion but don’t pay taxes to fund the infrastructure they’re using. Okay, let's play the measuring game. I have paid over $200,000 in income taxes this year so far, as well as another massive heap in property taxes. I also own two cars on which I pay various taxes. What's you income and property tax bill to date? Regarding gas specifically: 1. There are zero states where gas taxes pay for all road construction and maintenance. Zero. None. 2. More importantly, motorists generally have no sense of how much their gas is subsidized. For example, a huge portion of that $200K of income taxes goes towards our military, who spend a lot of money to kill people and/or maintain the threat of killing people. That violence and/or threat of violence is absolutely necessary for you to maintain your petroleum-dependent lifestyle. (Of course, my taxes are trivial compared to other costs, such as those to the victims of the violence necessary to maintain US energy needs.) And that's before other issues like the environment and climate change (separately), the SPR, etc. etc.

notch656a 4y ago
Unless they're only consuming locally produced goods, pedestrians and cyclists are also availing themselves of subsidized gas at the hands of the machines of violence. Lets not pretend they're morally superior. And in fact, they are still almost always dependent on tractor-trailer compatible roads and gas guzzling vehicles, they just offload the petroleum consuming dirty work to others.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  No. If the US didn't use gas for personal transport or pleasure vehicles, its domestic supply would be more than sufficient.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    In the long run the domestic supply is a non-renewable resource. Even excluding use of "pleasure vehicles", there is no scenario where the domestic supply is viable at current rate pedestrians and cyclists are consuming it in the long run. >domestic supply Interestingly, US has been a net exporter of petroleum for the past 2 years. Even including use of 'pleasure vehicles' like those that take grandma to the doctor from her country home so she doesn't die. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...

avianlyric 4y ago

Road damage is proportional to the square of vehicle axle weight. The difference in weight between a bike and a car is so great, that bike do effectively zero damage to roads. A high quality segregated cycle lane requires effectively no maintenance. It won’t develop potholes, it won’t need resurfacing, it just needs cleaning. A standard road will need regular maintenance and resurfacing for its entire life. You could make cyclists cover the full cost of their infrastructure usage, but you would spend far more on collecting the money, than would actually collect. Off normal road, cycle damage is measured in cents/pence per year. > cyclists increase traffic congestion So you think putting that person in car is going to reduce congestion? Cyclists are people too, many of them cycle to go somewhere, if they didn’t cycle they would drive. > People that drive cars pay taxes on gas and their vehicle to fund and maintain streets but city councils around the country are expropriating lanes for cyclist use. No municipality in world makes drivers pay the full cost of externalities they create. Most municipalities don’t even make drivers cover the cost of road building and maintenance, zero make them cover the costs created from the pollution and environmental damage they cause.

notch656a 4y ago
>>Road damage is proportional to the square of vehicle axle weight >No municipality in world makes drivers pay the full cost of externalities they creat The interesting conclusion here: 1) Semis / tractor-trailer and delivery vehicles are then vastly underpaying for their externalities as their gas tax and vehicle-specific charges don't tend to be square of weight. 2) By vastly underpaying, the clients of those buying goods transported by these vehicles are vastly underpaying for these externalities. 3) Exclusive pedestrians/bicyclists, who are highly dependent on large delivery vehicles to take goods from point of manufacture to places they can access via walking/biking, are vastly underpaying for these externalities.
- avianlyric 4y ago
  > By vastly underpaying, the clients of those buying goods transported by these vehicles are vastly underpaying for these externalities. > 3) Exclusive pedestrians/bicyclists, who are highly dependent on large delivery vehicles to take goods from point of manufacture to places they can access via walking/biking, are vastly underpaying for these externalities. Are you honestly trying to say that all, or the majority of, HGVs on the road are exclusively delivering items for pedestrians and cyclists? Or that if you drive a car, your local supermarket no longer needs HGVs for delivery? Or that moving those goods in hundreds of private cars is more efficient than moving them in a single HGV?

francisofascii 4y ago

Again, the "bikes don't pay taxes" argument is another example of a motorist's sense of unfairness without acknowledging the vast difference between cyclists and cars. If you were to compare the mileage, width requirements, safely concerns, noise and emissions pollution between the two, cyclists would represent about about 1% of the total cost. So sure, charge a $1/year to own a bike.