Bicycle tax in Oregon?
 

First statewide bicycle tax in nation leaves bike-crazy Oregon riders deflated - Washington Times

How did they decide on $15 anyway? If a 2000 pound car pays $200, a 30 pound car should pay $3. Or is this a one-time tax? What about used bicycles?

There is a discussion of the tax here:
http://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-s...ventually.html

Apparently it isn't law yet... but getting there. For some reason it took 12 days to be signed by the House and Senate and delivered to the Governor.

It still hasn't been signed by the Governor, and I think she has 30 days to from yesterday to sign or reject it. Plus there is a line item veto which is also possible. The actual bill is extremely long and complicated, and includes things like taxing fuel efficient vehicles more than gas guzzlers.

For the Oregon residents, write to the Governor expressing your support or dismay.

There is a 2 year sunset provision on the whole package, but in many cases, the legislatures simply extend previous laws indefinitely. Someone will come out and say they MUST extend it.

$15 only applies to new bikes valued over $200, with 26" (diameter) or larger wheels. No actual definition of a wheel, see discussion in the other chain about whether a wheel includes a tire or not.

Lots of grey areas when it comes to high-end bikes. Assembled from parts? It is also an extremely regressive tax.

7.5% on a $200 bike.
0.1% on a $15000 bike.

Here's some commentary on it.

Caving to Resentment Politics, Oregon Enacts a Bike Tax

If governments give cyclists the same priority and comparable infrastructure structure as motor vehicles, I would gladly pay $15... in fact, i would pay it every year. Sadly, $1.2 million raised by the tax will only pay administrative costs and no money will be available to make any improvements in bicycling infrastructure.

I'm not sure where you get the administrative costs. According to the article above, $1.2 Million raised, $100 Thousand in administration. So that comes up to be about 10%.... still pretty high. The grant system it is tied to likely will have a lot of fees too, but no more than it already has.

I suppose I don't see the $15 cost as a major expense on a one-time purchase of a new bike. However, it is extremely odd in the implementation, hitting small businesses heavier than department stores. And, I would much rather the state create a program to encourage riding bikes, rather than raise the costs to those starting out. For example, making pre-tax loans like is done in the UK.

There is a lot of work happening with the improvement of bicycling infrastructure. But there is still a lot of work to go including improving traffic light triggers. Also maintaining all the aging infrastructure. When paving, pave to the edge of the road, not just where cars drive. Our local off-street bike paths around here are decades old, and have bumps, roots, cracks, and etc... time to do some repairs.

And, of course, just making some new off-street paths or car-free zones.

I didn't expect to see the ride to work scheme mentioned on BF. I've never used it but it operates on salary sacrifice.

It's an interesting scheme. I am cheap though and just the extra money into pension. I have colleagues that buy a next bike every year (max £1k/year.)

I'm all for reducing taxes where possible, but I don't mind paying taxes, in general, because I receive services from my governments, city, state & federal, etc

Portland has been aggressively improving the greenways(preferred bike roads) around town. Putting in speed humps to discourage cars, adding crossing lights at major crossing points. In fact I used to complain about the lack of North/South(my commute) bike friendly routes and it definitely discouraged me from riding. This year, the improvements have me commuting by bike about 4 times as much. The bike infrastructure is improving by the day around town, and if this tax allows that to continue, I'm all for it.

In the comments someone points this out

Maybe someone should have done some checking.

For a revenue generating stream, this is a poorly considered idea. I agree that a 10% administrative cost is high but what should be considered is what can be done with the rest of the $1.3 million. A 5 foot bikeway costs an average of $130,000 per mile to build, The range is $5000 to $535,000 per mile, depending on many factors. A $5000 bike way is probably paint on existing roadway while $535,000 would include bridges or, maybe, a single bridge.

But a 5 foot bikeway is way below industry standards with the actual width being closer to 10 or 11 feet. That doubles the cost so a average mile of bikeway would cost $260,000. Their $1.3 million will build approximately 5 miles of bike path. That a lot of sturm und drang for just a little bit of return.

Pretty soon we'll have a shoe tax, which could help with sidewalks and crosswalks. Maybe $1.00 per shoe?

Some of those speed bumps are absolutely wicked :twitchy:

The last time I was up there, I was riding west along Hamilton Street to avoid some of the construction along Beaverton Hillsdale Highway.

Anyway, someone put speed bumps at the bottom of the valleys between rolling hills. Just where one wants to maintain some momentum for the next climb. :eek:

I noticed Portland ground off the speed bumps along Ankeny Street :thumb: Too many cyclists complaining?

There have been some nice bicycle bridge and bridge access projects, and I would assume not cheap.

I hate speed bumps and would take a different route to avoid them while cycling, just like in a car. I hope they don't get that idea in Madison, where they're also improving bike infrastructure pretty regularly.

They're here, on a few streets, not too widespread. Mostly in places where residents were complaining about cars going way too fast. But the way they're designed here, they seem to be pretty gentle for a bike. It's hard to design an aggressive speed bump that doesn't get whacked by the next snowplow to come through.