Kinst_VonSterga

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Our local mayor was brave enough to make the following statement during the last Metro Advisory Meeting, "Bicycle Community isn't helping pay for bike paths".

https://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/...ike_paths.html

The followup question should be "When will the Bicycle Community have a say on the location and types of bike paths that our city decides to build?" and more importantly, "are they being used as intended?"
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Consularrider

What's their funding source? I certainly pay high property taxes and state income taxes that go to fund most local infrastucture and parks where I live.

dolanp

If all bike path and road construction money is raised via taxes levied on motor vehicles, then he does sort of have a point. In those cases the governments are taking it on faith that the money spent will reduce traffic and help the economy.

Digital_Cowboy

I have to laugh at people like this who don't fully understand that the gas tax, and other fees actually make up a small portion of the money that supports the roads. Particularly those within city limits. They don't stop to think or consider that property tax, sales tax, etc. also help to support the roads. And the last time I checked unless one is homeless we all pay those other taxes in one form or another.

dougmc

Even the homeless pay these things in one form or another -- they buy products that pay sales tax, for example. They don't pay property taxes directly or even one-step-removed-from-directly (if they stay in shelters, the shelters are usually tax exempt) but the stores they spend their meager money in usually do pay property taxes.

In any event, as soon as gasoline taxes, registration and driver's license fees pay for a significant portion of the roads this argument will become a strong one. But this is far from reality. Hell, in Texas the gasoline taxes are mandated by the Texas Constitution to only pay for the state highway system (i.e. roads with numbers) (and schools) -- it can't pay a single penny for the city roads that aren't part of the highway system -- and these are the roads cyclists use the most. And registration and DL fees go to the state -- which rarely pays for roads in city limits. Those roads are paid for by property and sales taxes, which cyclists pay like everybody else.

I imagine his next argument is that the poor shouldn't get to go to good schools -- those will be reserved only for the rich who pay sufficient taxes? At least that would be a better argument than the one he's making here.

Kinst_VonSterga

Perhaps they think that most of us cyclists don't own a car or home to pay either the gas tax or property taxes they are so starved for.

Gas Taxes: If the fuel we burn, including the underlying gas tax/revenue that it generates, is insufficient for the amount spent by our state, county and city governments, then they're correct. After paying for their administrative paychecks, consulting and analysis fees, public pension funds, the money left over for the actual construction/repair of roads will always be insufficient. Funny, since its the same city, county, state and federal governments who are the strongest proponents for using non-fossil fuel transportation.

Property Taxes: If I own a home or decide to rent from someone else who pays the property taxes on my behalf (from the proceeds of my lease/rental payment), then city/state government still gets their significant share of property tax revenue from me either way.

We have no "direct" consumer sales tax in Oregon, though we have a horribly high % property and personal income taxes.

I'm sure someone has a contrarian analogy to throw into the mix.

Cheers,

crhilton

It's a silly argument on his part:
1. The expenditures are tiny. The fed spends around .5-2 billion dollars a year on bike paths. Localities also spend quite a bit, especially cities. But it's still small.
2. The highway trust fund takes money from non-user fee sources. Something like $50 billion a year.
3. Local roads are typically built either at the expense of property owners, or from the general fund. That has lots of sources, such as property, income, and sales taxes.
4. Most "bike paths" are really multi use paths. And a quick trip on it will tell you who is making the most of it. Some places may build them for bicyclists, but at least in my city they're designed for everyone and bicyclists probably represent less than half the use.
5. These paths are rarely built on any sensible plan that has users in mind. They're usually put where there is extra room. If they can't find that they widen a sidewalk. What was the last new arterial you saw built immediately next to another arterial, or built in a flood control system's flood plain?

Roads get far too much leeway on spending because the main user (motorists) pays a user fee. In reality the user fee is too low to support the road building we do and because the expenditures are so huge the percent they fail to pay trumps the total cost of building things like bike paths.


This mayor is probably just trying to differentiate himself and his city from Portland. Portland does spend and do a lot for bicyclists. If we had infrastructure like that I'd be happy to pay a special user fee to support it.

Captain Blight

Never mind that the cycling community very much helps subsidize the Federal highway system, however, to the tune of ca. $500/passenger/year. You'd think a fraction of that running the other way be understandable and acceptable, but the Party of No has brainwashed their Myrmidons into thinking that all taxes are confiscatory and unnecessary.

B. Carfree

Just this year the new (and former) Governor of Oregon proposed having a highway bond pay for the troopers who patrol the interstates instead of paying them out of general fund money. He was nearly lynched. The motorists have always gotten a free ride and will whine whenever the Ferris wheel slows down.

BHOFM

We are lucky, most of our bike, multi-use trails are funded
by grants from private corporations. One in particular.
Not sure about the exact numbers, but Walmart did about
$55 million last year. When the system is complete we will
have over 100 miles of trails.

Captain Blight

I can only imagine that the AR Party of NO will trot that out in support of a truly laissez-faire system and how it will nevitably triiumph over any system with any Gubbimint involvement.

McTrey

To be fair, he was criticized for the idea because robbing the highway fund of already declining revenues would only further hurt the very poor shape of the highway system in Oregon. Add to this the slippery slope of using dedicated funds that by law are to be used for construction and maintenance of the transportation infrastructure. Sure, this time it's paying for Troopers, but what about next time they need to move money around?

To say motorists get a free ride is the same as saying bicyclists get a free ride. It's simply untrue.

ModeratedUser150120149

Most telling arguement is simple. There is no such thing as a "Bicycle Community". Bicycles are ridden for everything from neighborhood toys to fitness tools to income generators for professional cyclists and food cart people to recreation for others. None of these people have much in common other than the thing they pedal and often not even that. Bicycles aren't even licensed so they aren't even in the status of an "official" transport.

Figure out what the "Bicycle Community" is, come up with a licensng scheme to add legitimacy in the general public's mind and then get them enacted into law and our whole environment will change for the better.

Whiteknight

Mayor Jerry Willey needs to be educated. This so-called bicycle paths are multi use paths. The construction and maintenance costs are usually viewed in terms of recreation use hours.
When the Corps of Engineers proposed a local flood control dam they calculated the costs versus the value to the surrounding area. The value included recreation use hours. The value is supposed to equal or exceed construction costs. In some areas a good MUP will bring a good deal of money into a local economy. The York County (PA) Heritage Rail Trail is a good example of this. The Schuylkill River Trail is another example of this.

mikeybikes

BS. The non-cycling motorists will still want cyclists off their roads, regardless of whether or not we have licenses.

CB HI

And on top of that, the non-cycling motorists will remain ignorant of any bicycle licenses. Honolulu/Oahu has had enforced bicycle licenses going back to the 70's and it has not gained cyclist any respect. The license money is suppose to go to BikeEd training for kids and bicycle specific projects. Several years ago, the City stole a couple million dollars out of the fund, put it in the general fund, claimed they could not figure out who did it; and because they had no idea where the money was spent, could not return the funds to the bicycle account.

fuji86

I understand his position, he brought a very good point about electric vehicles too. In the end it doesn't matter, it's really about finding a paying customer. Gasoline will be priced to compensate for any electric vehicle decline in consumption and when it comes to electric vehicles, watch price per kilowatt hour increase too.

ModeratedUser150120149

Now THAT was productive. What is being done now isn't working it seems. So, stop complaining and figure out something else.

Most of these posts are like a mutual massage society that may bring some temporary good feelings but in he end it is a lot of ruckus about nothiing.

irwin7638

And the vast majority of cyclists have cars and pay taxes on those also. Sounds like the mayor is very ignorant, get a new one!

Marc

rydabent

I dont know about this Mayor and his city. I thot Oregon was cycling "friendly" and would think his city would be also. In my city Lincoln Ne. we have the Great Plains Trails Network. GPTN has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars that has supported trails in Lincoln. BTW Lincoln has over 125 miles of excellent hiker/biker trails.

Some how I think that mayor is out of order when he says the city has paid for 100% of trails.

ModeratedUser150120149

Your conduct in helping pople get around is certainly admirable. Keep up the good work. That doesn't address the question at hand though. What you are doing is more akin to charitable work like any other social service agency than changing political or social mores.

The question is how to improve relations between cyclists and motorists. In that same vein how to move those cyclists who seem to be in a persistent rage at the rest of the world, especially motorists, to a point where they can give to and get respect from motorists.

I did not originate the idea of bicycle licensing, despite your attribution. But it should not be dismissed out of hand. It has been tried and works in some areas fr some purposes. Licensing should be considered as part of a solution; not the whole solution.


In solving the problem, no matter what you might think, the keys are in funding, taxes, "and all that jazz". That is the system we have and as has been demonstrated over and over in other areas if you want success you have to understand and find a way to use the system to cycling's benefit.

I-Like-To-Bike

Bicycle licensing "Works"? Really?

How/Where? Accomplishing what "solution" to what problem?

fuji86

I'm not for the bicycle licensing. Those on bikes are really a minimally negligible footprint on the wear and tear of the roads. You'd have a hard time convincing me that any repair to the road is caused at all by the weight of the cyclist & equipment, not to mention any friction from the tires. There is a reason that potholes are usually located where the tracking of a cars tires are, even sagging in the roadway. Automobiles tear up the road surface, they should pay for their paths and any resurfacing. When I even think of how much excess asphalt is laid where the road and gutter meet causing unevenness, it's almost laughable to think that cycling causes that. The road needs to be that wide across the board, because cars have problems & breakdown, there needs to be excess roadway for motorists. As for extra cost, yeah, they might have to paint and put signs up, but really that's not necessary, common sense should take precedence. When you see a cyclist as a driver, do motorists really need a sign or bike lane to give them enough room when they pass or to just share the road ?

dougmc

Actually, it's the larger trucks and mother nature that do the most damage -- automobiles do relatively little damage.

Bikes may not do any damage to the road, but they do use the road, so it would be fair to assess them (based on the % of road use is bicycle) some of the damage caused by mother nature. And of course some of the cost to build the road in the first place.

And if the road is made wider to add a bike lane, if you're keeping track of what percentage of the road is for bicycles, it makes sense to include that bike lane in your calculation.

But this is all moot, as road maintenance is mostly not paid for by gasoline taxes or car registration -- it's mostly paid for by property and sales taxes. So it doesn't really matter what form of transportation requires the road and their maintenance (though the drivers of heavy commercial trucks are hit hard by taxes from every angle) -- the roads are there for the betterment of society.

bluefoxicy

This is entirely sensible as an argument.

The more direct point is that bicycles don't generate any revenue. You pay property tax, sure; but what's the point of supplying bike infrastructure? More highways means more long distance trips because they're not painfully slow and congested, which means more gas tax, as minimal revenue as that is. More bike paths means ... more bike paths, that people travel on, but we'll never hear anything about that because they don't consume anything taxable specifically for biking.

Of course, since this isn't a business--not that the government shouldn't be run more like a business; without a care for managing revenue and costs, they run the costs up endlessly, have budget crises, and then tax the hell out of us until we're poor to make up for their mismanagement--the government has other concerns besides profit. Unfortunately, even that's a difficult argument, because ... who here is going to quote how many bicycles vs cars on the road? Something like 0.01%? Something utterly unimportant; a tiny, tiny minority that it's a large waste of time and resources to deal with solely by the numbers.

Bicycling is a cultural issue, and unless you want to attack the culture--that means heavy government campaigns, heavy funding, tax deductions for buying a bicycle, maybe even a gov-regulated odometer on the bike to track mileage per year and credit that back--you're really wasting a lot of time and money building up infrastructure. Unfortunately, most people see "progress" as "change," but not all change is progress. They're vaguely aware of it, as is evidenced by the well-acknowledged obesity "crisis" in the US.

The government is wasting its money building bike paths and bike lanes unless it wants to openly encourage cycling as a transit means--which, given that we're building cycling paths with parking lots to drive up to, doesn't seem likely. Bicycles are toys; if they were transit, you would bike to the bike trail instead of showing up in an SUV and unloading your bike to go play in the woods. When they start coming out and supplying programs and public service messages and tax incentives to use a bicycle as transit, they'll have solid justification for putting in bike transit infrastructure; until then, it's all posturing.

I'm amazed they haven't actually done that, considering how much of a "crisis" fat kids are, and how much they whine that "global warming" is going to kill us if we don't drive less, and how congested and expensive the roads are, and how much lack of fitness affects public health and thus burdens the economy with excessive healthcare costs ... it seems like a rather obvious priority. But no, they're just going to continue posturing over expenses and complaining about sugary foods and soda in schools.