FenderTL5

IF (can you make the IF any bigger?), if an equatable formula were devised so that the taxes are proportional, I would take second look at the idea.

For example; since the weight of the vehicle is a major factor in the amount of road maintenance required; suppose the registration fee were levied on non-commercial vehicles by weight. As an example 4000lb car could be taxed at $.02 per pound ($80), this would keep my local tax/registration fee relatively static (it's $78) currently.
You apply the same algorithm to a 30 pound bike and the fee would be $.60.
That would be enough to pay for the little corner sticker that you get annually to place on your motor vehicle plate.

Designate a spot on bicycle to place the sticker.. no plates, just the sticker.

What is gained:
The argument that cyclist don't pay is eliminated. It never held water to begin with but this eliminates it from the discussion entirely.
Road rights, all rights and lane usage are entrenched by the registration.

Yes, the cost of maintaining the program (with overhead expenses) would cost more than it generates. However, heavier vehicles (like trucks, SUV's etc) would end up paying more to offset their damages to infrastructure. I used $.02 as an example in order to maintain the same rate on a typical sedan that's applicable in my location. That rate could be adjusted higher, say a nickle instead of two cents.. but I was just tossing in my two cents.

work4bike

Do you have a link? What area are you from?

rydabent

This of course is a stupid idea promoted by grumpy drivers. The main reason that it is stupid, is a cop going to pull over 4 year old little Susie on her sidewalk bike and demand her license?

Flinstone

Well you found two here. I'm not always against them, as I said. Just sometimes. But if you want to see some opinions just google dzbl lane, Here's an interesting discussion:

What could possibly go wrong? | Commute Orlando

It's not all about the doors though.

Anyway, these posts about people needing to pay their own way is silly. As many have said, we all pay for roads and cyclists surely pay for a disproportionately high amount of road construction and certainly maintenance compared to what they use.

Chief

Roads may "appear" to built for cars, but they are still PUBLIC roadway, free to be traveled upon by private citizens.
And no, I'm not asking for a second set of public roadway only for bicycles. That would be silly!

rekmeyata

First of all increased property values would be paid back to cyclists that own homes, how else would that be paid back? Same is true with streets, paved streets increase home values of those that own homes on that street but not everyone who drives a street owns a home on that street. Really, you had to ask that?

And with a very tiny portion of the population riding bikes the decreased traffic congestion will be unmeasurable anyways as would be the productivity be unmeasurable. And again the same is true with more jobs per dollar bs you went off on.

The extra tax revenue gives back to the cyclists with more paths and more bike lanes, again why would you ask that when it's obvious what the payback is?

Show me examples of cyclists already pay their own way more than motorists? That's just pure left field BS. The reason bike lanes and paths not to mention signage and laws are built is for bikes, not walkers or runners unless in a park, that should be obvious to you as well...but obviously it isn't.

rekmeyata

this whole statement is silly. A public roadway is NOT free to anyone, all private citizens paid taxes to have those built, so this idea of free is just plain ignorance, kind of like the dream of free health insurance, it won't be free by any means.

Your not asking for a second set of public roadways for bikes only? but that's what most cities have, they're called bike paths, a separate set of "roadways" for mostly bikes.

KD5NRH

I was thinking more along the lines of including rated capacity. That way the bicycle is still going to be under $5/yr, (Realistically; unless you're in Kansas, you're not going far with more than 500lbs total weight including rider.) while the heavy duty truck and flatbed trailer gets taxed based on how much it can carry, rather than just its empty weight. Maybe a discount for legitimate passenger use heavy vehicles, like 16-passenger vans, as long as they're maintained in the passenger configuration.

rekmeyata

No cyclists do not pay a disproportionately high amount of road construction and maintenance, where did you come up with this nonsense? Road construction is paid by mostly taxes on gasoline and to a smaller degree registration fees and tow roads which cyclists aren't allowed on, last I checked a cyclist doesn't use gas on their bikes, though they may expel gas...

ItsJustMe

Most of the "bikes should be taxed" people have the mistaken belief that car taxes pay for roads. In fact the only recurring taxes are for fuel and registration. Registration pretty much just pays for the infrastructure needed to do the registration, the parts that do go to roads are usually prorated based on the weight of the vehicle (because that's related to how much damage they cause). If you scaled this down to a bicycle, it would probably be a fraction of a penny.

Fuel taxes are almost exclusively used to pay for limited access expressways which bicycles are not (generally) allowed to ride on anyway.

The taxes that pay for the roads that bicycles ARE allowed to use are generally sales and property taxes, which bicycle riders are ALREADY paying - and since they cause less damage than if they were driving a car, it's pretty easy to argue that bicycle riders are already OVERTAXED because they pay as much as a car driver but don't cause as much damage.

SpeshulEd 

Being upset about shortcomings of the current cycling infrastructure is not the same as not wanting any bike infrastructure. Cities plan poorly, and take shortcuts to save money. Not to mention, people don't understand traffic flows and freak out when they hear they'll lose a lane to cycling, so that protected bike lane becomes a sharrow, and then everyone complains about the poor cycling infrastructure.

Understand the problem, and then be a solution to it.

Or just continue to tell me I'm wrong, while being ignorant to the larger picture.

FenderTL5

Based on recent local information, here, only about 18% of the city's funding for transportation comes from the gas tax and tags/registration. The balance comes from a variety of sources including local sales and property taxes.
To be clear, I'm speaking of the city/county road budget. The State and Interstate budgets are separate.. then again, bikes are prohibited from using the interstates and discouraged from many state routes either overtly or by prohibitive infrastructure.

FenderTL5

rated capacity is a factor in commercial registration (as I understand it but I could be wrong). I was only considering private vehicles. However, as I qualified in my post, if the model is proportional It'd be something I'd consider favoring/promoting. For private registration, I was thinking that the manufacturer listed weight would be a simple way of supplying the data.
I do like your thought about considering a discount for multi-passenger vehicles.
Anything to discourage single-occupancy motor-vehicle use and encourage alternatives is a plus.

Chief

I'll try to insert some sanity to this....think lowest common denominator... think of the poorest, least contributing among us in society. The most they pay in "taxes" is what little bit trickles out of their pocket during cigarette and wine purchases. Since the days of the Magna Carta, people in western civilizations have had the right (acknowledged) to move/travel freely...not taxed, tolled, fined, fee-ed, levied, apportioned, licensed or otherwise restricted.
Yes, roads (and libraries and fire-stations and so on) get built by governments with citizens' money. Do we all pay the same? No. Do we all get equal access to the roads (and libraries and fire-stations and so on)? Yes.
To require me to pay extra/special/different as a cyclist using the roadway is to restrict my free movement. I'm not a commercial (whole other topic) truck doing damage to the roadway... I'm the poorest person you ever met....and I just want to go somewhere!

KD5NRH

GVWR should be listed on most vehicles already. IMO, a large part of the problem is vehicles that are actually being used as commercial, but registered as private or farm. (Texas specifically prohibits the deep-discounted farm registration from being used in any non-farm employment, but you'll see trailers and trucks with farm plates being misused that way pretty often.)

It's not so much the single occupancy that bothers me as low occupancy of inefficient vehicles. One guy in a Geo Metro getting 50mpg is far more efficient than two in a 12mpg truck or SUV with no cargo, after all. That's why I really want to see the Elio hit the market; it's an excellent combination of efficiency and comfort. I could match it (barely) in efficiency with a motorcycle capable of keeping up on the interstate, but there's nothing else on the market that would let me do that and stay warm and dry in a freezing rain, and carry a suit without wrinkling it too. Not sure how efficient they are with the air conditioner running, but it can't be too bad with the small cabin, and would make all the difference when it's 105F and 90% humidity here; even a motorcycle can be miserable in that.

mconlonx

1) At least in my state, bicycles are subject to the same level of sales tax that apply to motor vehicles.

2) Our bonehead (R) Governor suggested taxing bicycles extra and got shouted down... by everyone, including other (R) legislators who took exception to any (R) suggesting a new or expanded tax.

3) I would have no problem paying a use tax for riding my bike on public ways... as long as it was equitable, and the tax was levied as some function like weight of vehicle x miles traveled.

4) As it now stands, non-road users, car-free cyclists, motorcyclists, and those who drive lighter cars less frequently subsidize other road users who more frequently travel in heavier vehicles.

ItsJustMe

I'd be happy to pay too, if they scaled the taxes a car pays to be proportional to what a bike pays, based on the space they take up on the road, the amount that needs to be spent on police and emergency personnel to deal with them (traffic law and crash cleanup/investigation), and the damage that they do to the roads.

I figure either car rates stay the same and bicycles pay about 25 cents a year, or bikes pay 25 bucks a year and cars now would cost a few thousand dollars a year to register.

ANN5250

It is in the Salt Lake City, UT area. Here is the link

Letter: Tax bicyclists | Deseret News

rekmeyata

Again this is a false conclusion. Yes bicycles are allowed on public roads because the cyclists and the motorists paid for that in their taxes, keep in mind that 99.9% of the cyclists own cars, so the cyclists cars do cause damage, so the cyclists are simply paying for damage their cars do therefore they are NOT overtaxed. Smart car owners are the ones being overtaxed because those cars weigh next to nothing.

rekmeyata

You failed at injecting sanity if anything you went the opposite way.

I doubt you're the poorest person I've ever met, I'll mention that to some people in India the next time I'm there, they'll get a good laugh out that. I bet you have a nice bike, a nice apartment or maybe a house with your parents, a big screen TV, a Iphone, a computer of some sort, cable, internet service, food, utilities, and at least 13 mostly high quality bikes...that's not the poorest person I've ever met. So right there you lost it on the sanity part.

The tax on a cyclist does not restrict your free movement, in fact it would improve it due to the increase of funds to build more and better bike paths and lanes, again you lost it on the sanity part.

CB HI

Some of you should be very careful about what you wish for. Honolulu does have a bicycle registration fee for each new or used bicycle purchased or brought into the state from outside. The city forces bicycle shops to do the labor of registration and then mail it and the money to the city. $25 for each bicycle. The money goes into a bicycle specific fund with much of it used to educate 4th graders in bicycle VC riding and safety. The kids education is why cyclist here do not fight the registration. The rest of the money is suppose to go for bicycle projects. Many city politicians brag about how much money the city gave each year to the education program, never mentioning the cyclist are the ones who really paid for it.

Several years ago, 2 million dollars disappeared from the bicycle fund. It seems the money got moved to the general city fund and no one in the city could figure out who did it. The city also claimed that it was impossible to investigate or even move the 2 million dollars back out of the general fund and back into the bicycle fund.

A few years ago, a military spouse had just moved to Oahu and rode in a charity ride. Off duty police were hired for intersection control. One cop waved a driver into the intersection even though the cyclist was approaching at speed with the right of way. The cycling military spouse was injured and taken to hospital. The police made sure she got her ticket for riding an unregistered bicycle, which was now totaled because of the cops actions (even though the does not bother to put the bicycle registration requirement out to military who move her with their bicycles from the mainland). No warnings and no grace period.

Some how, stolen registered bicycles still do not make it back to the owners. But the registration sticker does make it easy for the cops to ID the rider whenever they want to.

Chief

i give up

TheLibrarian

It only costs 130K because the government is ridiculously corrupt. Bike paths have walkers, joggers and everyone else. As stated before thats already paid through property taxes. If the town does not wish to provide these bike paths they are under no obligation to. They say oh look what we built for you, vote for us, aren't we so great now you pay for something you didn't ask for.

I wonder some people here might be kgb government agents. I laughed when i first found out but then realized multiple candidates, super pacs and govt agencies do that regularly... what did i just hear about...it was Clintons campaign against Bernies online army but ive heard repubs talk about it in the past and know for sure they have agents as well. So this guy is working with whatever office wants this to happen. I couldn;'t imagine anyone not kgb saying they want to pay more for anything and being a jerk to others about it on the internet. Scary times. Plenty of people are dragged away in the night never to be seen again as well as the lives destroyed and jobs lost because of all these spies running around.

prathmann

Glancing at the comments there it looks like you already have plenty of support from other readers.

rekmeyata

You should give up with the insanity you were posting...LOL, just messin with you.