Old 10-17-09, 06:26 PM
  #31  
crhilton
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Originally Posted by Old Town
UnsageAlpine in my boy.

I don't rail against these efforts to make things better to irritate cyclists like the fellow who started this thread. What worries me if the high profile such efforts will afford bicyclist everywhere. This is NOT a good. The very last thing we want is the local goverment agencies knowing we exist at all. You start demanding bike paths and bike lanes, drains fixed to better blind or stupid cyclists, posts to lock bikes to, this curb moved for more bike room and on and on and it's just a matter of time before the town or city authorities say, "Hey, these bike guys are large in number and pretty damn demanding." All that infrastructure crap you want? It cost real money. Up till now we've had it easy, the autos have paid for all of it. That will not last for long. We will be targeted and we SHOULD be targeted if we want concrete change in the infrastructure. I do not want to pay for a bike license or a registration or some damn excise tax like many car owners do in many states. Beware of what you wish for.
It does cost real money, but we're already paying for it: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/2006cpr/es06h.htm

Almost a third of road funding is subsidized. Income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes.

The changes we're looking for are typically pretty cheap. Compare them to the cost of building car only infrastructure like a free way and it's downright cheap.
ftp://ftp.dot.state.fl.us/LTS/CO/Est...PM/summary.pdf

Yes, they'll try to tax us more, but that's only because so many are uneducated on the matter.
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