An argument from www.thestranger.com that you might have missed.
Editorial page editor James Vesely, a resident of Mercer Island,
argued in the Seattle Times on Sunday, December 7, that the
City of Seattle ought to tax cyclists for the privilege of using
streets they already pay for.
“A $25 annual fee for owning a bike is a natural outgrowth of the
enormous amounts of trails, lanes, and accommodations the region has
made to cyclists,” Vesely wrote. “It would also make cyclists true
members of the world of transportation, rather than free riders on the tax rolls.”
That’s pretty rich coming from a guy whose editorial page has made a
decadeslong crusade of fighting against estate taxes on the very
wealthy—and whose own industry is exempt from Washington State’s
sales tax (which, incidentally, people who buy bikes and cycling gear
have to pay).
Vesely continues: “Special licenses are not new. We license dogs,
our cars, our boats, our motorcycles, our pleasures in hunting and
fishing, as well as many other outdoor activities. Cyclists, known for
their community spirit and exalted senses of self, should welcome this
opportunity to help government support their activities.”
That’s the kind of sentence that can only be written by someone
who’s disingenuous or ill informed or both. Driving—unlike owning
a dog or a fishing rod—is one of the most heavily subsidized
activities humans do. Every year, the U.S. government spends more
than $100 billion to subsidize driving above and beyond what
drivers spend on gas taxes, cars, sales tax, and license plates. Those
expenses come out of all of our pockets—including those of
us who never get behind the wheel of a car. As a cyclist, I’m
subsidizing Vesely, not the other way around.
And that’s not even counting the externalities like pollution, the
increased cost of health care due to auto accidents, sub-market-rate
parking provided by cities, and military spending to protect our access
to cheap oil. Not to mention the fact that one cyclist on the
Burke-Gilman Trail is one fewer car on the road. That’s something
auto-bound dinosaurs like Vesely ought to appreciate but don’t. We
cyclists don’t need another “opportunity to help government support”
things like striping bike lanes and building cycling
paths—we’re already paying for all those things and then
some.
But Vesely turns this logic inside out, arguing that the presence of
a few bike lanes indicates “a remarkable generosity on the part of
Puget Sound taxpayers”—by which, of course, he means drivers.
“Whenever new transportation projects are studied, bike lanes are as
automatic as white striping.”
Road projects in Seattle do often include new bike lanes. You
know why? In 2006, voters here decided to pay for a property-tax
increase that includes the requirement that, wherever possible, road
projects include new bike and pedestrian facilities. Every single
resident of Seattle pays this tax, either directly (property owners) or
indirectly (renters). You don’t get an exemption if you don’t own a
car. And striping bike lanes, I shouldn’t have to add, is a hell of a
lot cheaper than filling potholes and building sidewalks. By Vesely’s
logic, pedestrians should have to pay a special tax to use the
sidewalks—after all, why should we let walkers cadge that
part of the public right-of-way for “free”?
Fundamentally, Vesely’s view—that a few bike lanes and
sharrows constitute “enormous accommodations” for
cyclists—assumes that drivers own the roads, and cyclists are
lucky if they deign to “accommodate” us. Fortunately, the Seattle City
Council—that group that Vesely says doesn’t have the “guts” to
make cyclists pay an extra tax—understands that the more cyclists
there are on the road, the better the roads work for everyone, not just
those of us on two wheels. 
Regardless of additional use fees or so called “free rides”, the fact remains that bicycle commuters are taking their lives in their hands when sharing the road with cars.
I think anyone who wants to use the roads should pay the additional use fee, and gain some additional rights and responsibilities as a result. You can bad mouth me and my thoughts on this, but it’s how I see positive change coming about rather than railing against some subjective columnist’s viewpoint.
Take it to the City Council and lobby for the use fee and control it in your favor. You’ll have much more say in how the roads are designed and used – and I for one, of many citizens of Seattle, would be happy to see more dedicated bicycle corridors created.
I used to commute on bicycle (I commute via wire now) and was run down on Nickerson on the way to work by a driver who was looking for oncoming traffic as he pushed the gas pedal and hit me from behind. Fortunately there was a bus just pulling out behind us to block traffic or I’d have been another broken helmet and grease spot on the road. I was pissed off, and yet it wouldn’t have changed a thing, having a license plate on my bike. The point? I commiserate (spl?)
As an unregistered bicyclist, I am not visible to the Legisture or City Coucil. There’s no census data to confirm whether we should dedicate more funding to build more bicycle corridors. As a registered rider, I’d be able to raise some serious hay with the legislature and council members – a voice along with thousands of other like-minded registered riders.
Call it a membership fee or whatever you like, but get together on the subject and make change happen. If you want to get something done, stop being passive agressive and rebellious bloggers, and start coming up with real solutions to your issues.
Gasoline ought to cost $75/gal. to reflect it’s true cost to society according to “A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash”
I don’t see what drivers are moaning about. If you can’t afford that then dump your mansion on mercer island and get an apt. in seattle and walk/bike/bus to work like the rest of us who are actually paying for the streets you drive on in seattle.
I would support an annual $1 per pound tax. That accurately reflects road wear and tear. Average bike weight < 20 lbs., average motorcycle 500 lbs., average car > 2500 lbs. So that would be $20 for privilege of riding a bike on city streets and over $2500 for the privilege of driving on city streets. I think I could handle that.
All I can think of in reading this article is that the crazy tax cuts Bush put in the past few months actually includes a tax benefit for bicycle commuters. Starting January 2009, one can take a $25 per month exclusion on costs associated with the maintenance of a bicycle for commuting purposes which one’s employer provides tax-free. This is an extension of a tax exclusion that’s been in place for a few years for vehicle commuting costs usually associated with parking and car-pooling. Being the only bicycle commuting tax accountant I know, I jumped for joy when the law passed. If you want the exact details of the law go to: http://www.bikeleague.org/news/100708adv… . However, you should probably see if your employer has a bunch of benefits and ask if they can add this one.
Yes please, tax these people that ride tandem, shut down traffic to protest, and take up lanes that cars pay for. Alki has a bike path, plus bike lanes on both sides of the street. Ridiculous. Thay can’t decide if they want to abide by the laws and be in traffic like a car, or go against traffic, run red lights, and cheat when it suits them. About time someone stopped bending over to these insane greenies around here. They want to redistribute wealth and raise taxes, please include them in their own mess they want to create.
I can see the headlines now, 4th Grader pulled over for riding his bike to school this morning. Police are out in force, and the truant officers are right behind picking these scoff-laws up (serves the little so-and-so’s right!).
Some editors have folders full of schtuff like this for when a lead story tanks right before press time.
How about taxing coffee a dime (remember that one)? How about some responsible reporting?
This is not only totally unenforceable, and is not worth the ink spent to print it, nor the legislatures time to find ouot that they are ignoring the idea.
Why bother dignifying this idiocy?
I think that the Associated Press re-printer/advertising mule can do much better than this, or at least one would hope so.
DiegoRiveras:
So what’s next: skateboard licenses?
Wheelchair license plates?
Pedestrian licenses??
There was a reason the founders of this nation added and defined MORE freedoms rather than make laws to define or restrict: they were encouraging freedom for freedom’s sake, to see what more good for humanity could come of it. Now while I’m not about to say bikers (yeah I said BIKERS – stuff it brandon: I can lift both my motorcycle and my schwinn in the air, bet you can’t make such a claim: so bring it, vocab police) are the best thing since the Bill Of Rights, I certainly would love to see my city lead the way on creating more opportunities to increase health, lower healthcare costs for employers and regular joes, slow the steady climb of exhaust in our region’s air, diminish -however slightly- the need for foreign oil and arguably foreign wars, and set an example for others of bicycle-centric city planning the way NYC has set an example for subways.
For freedom’s sake as it were. If we set a new standard for alternative commuting (with the same vigor our city has spent 2 decades setting a new standard for american coffee), then think what could come next? Imagine what mindset, what progressive and evolving POV our region’s investors, inventors and other smart folks might turn into a whole new, yet-unimagined transportation option. Now imagine the difference if all we do is spend the next generation coddling cars…
Encourage, by any and all means, biking as a replacement for driving when feasible.
Tax your mom…
I’d like to open with the fact that I believe Vesely’s reasoning to be absurdly stupid; however I do believe bikers that choose to share the road with motorists should have to be registered/licensed (plates and all), primarily because of the fact that many, not all, but many bicyclists (primarily those of the hipster/douchey variety) choose to take far too many dangerous liberties when riding in traffic. I think most Seattlites: drivers, citizens, pedestrians, etc. are familiar with what I’m talking about.
I don’t believe bikers are ticketed enough for their highly illegal and extremely dangerous actions on the road, and I think license plates on bicycles would be extremely helpful in denying the bikers of the asshole variety, the convenient anonymity that they currently hold.
The maneuvers I’ve seen many a biker pull on University Way, or Denny Way, or Broadway, or any other busy street (even non-high traffic streets for that matter) would be screamingly frowned upon and considered appalling by most people’s standards if committed by a motorist. Quite often the roadway strategies they employ are blatantly antagonistic towards motorists, and driving alongside them in a car (or even being a passenger in that car) is maddeningly frustrating and anxiety inducing simply due to the fear of hitting the badly behaving bikers or causing a car accident as a result of trying to avoid a more likely fatal bike/car accident.
I can appreciate the fact that more and more people choosing this alternate form of transportation is by and large an exceptionally good thing in a plethora of respects. I’m not trying to knock the population of people doing their part to help the environment and save tax dollars, many of whom do not act in the ways I’ve referred to, I just think some of them are taking advantage of the grey areas in the laws (or lack there of), and those people need to be put in check.
And by the way, Dude–In regards to bike riding reducing DUI’s, that’s entirely false. I’ve known of several people getting DUI’s on bicycles. Furthermore a very close friend of mine was riding his bike drunk, and crashed into a fucking tree which sent him to the hospital. That’s where the not smart part comes in. But anyway, yeah, you can get a dooey on a bicycle.
OOOooooh a tax, an evil taxxxx. Get over yourself already. Big deal. Pay the tax and move on with your life. Here in France we have to pay a TV-audiovisual tax regardless of whether we ever watch network TV. You own a TV/monitor – you pay the tax. We hate it but we pay it along with a zillion other taxes. Relax, it’s just a tax.
Firstly, I believe that paying a tax would help all us bike riders out there feel more grown up. I mean, being a full grown adult and still playing with toys in the street can be a little embarrassing. Especially when it comes time to pick up a first date and she’s gotta ride on the handle bars.
Secondly, I LOVE how we’re called “Bikers” now. It sounds Sooooo much hipper and grown up than ‘Cyclist”. I just wonder what the real bikers think of us. Someday we WILL be as feared and respected as them!
There are asshole drivers, and there are asshole bikers. The thing is, the asshole bikers are on the right side of history. (as you might suspect, I am a bike commuter)
I don’t have much of an opinion on this specific argument, but I surely wish the police would start ticketing bicyclists for moving violations. I see bicyclists committing violations routinely and they endanger themselves and others.
I agree with Gilbert. A small license plate on the back of the bike with tabs, so you can run those miscreants who are so holier-than-thou because they can create traffic havoc and not be tracked down. How many times have I had a bicyclist run a stop sign, causing me to have to slam on my brakes? Or weaving in and out of traffic at will, cutting me off? Are you a street vehicle, or a pedestrian? They want all of the above, at the detriment and risk of others on the road. And they get smug about it, even though in an accident, they have a much higher chance of turning up dead for their arrogance. Tax them, make them behave, and perhaps they might gain a modicum of respect from the majority of drivers. (Sorry, I can’t ride a bike 140 miles to work, AND haul all the stuff I need…)
even if a law was passed to tax bicycles, which won’t happen, it would be basically less enforceable than a law for jaywalking or littering. bikes aren’t registered under anyone’s name, are a relatively simple inexpensive machine compared to automobiles, motorcycles, etc. this is a pointless argument to begin with because it is totally unrealistic.