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Another letter to the editor



 
 
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  #1  
Old April 26th 06, 08:28 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
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Default Another letter to the editor

Maybe I just shouldn't read the newspaper.

---
Contrary to Dean Shirley's
(http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/app...OP01/604260329)
belief, bicyclists definitely
pay their fair share of taxes. Most bicyclists just ride on city streets.
We pay for these streets because, like everyone else, we pay general sales
and property taxes. State and Federal gas taxes, along with general fund
moneys, pay for the construction and maintenance of state and federal
highways, the majority of which do not have bicycle facilities or would be
downright unpleasant to ride on, even when bicycles are allowed on them.

In fact, bicyclists subsidize the motorists. We don't require the same
amount of pavement that motorists need. We don't put the same wear and
tear on the roads that motorists create. We don't use the vast parking
facilities motorists need. We also pay for emergency response services,
but due to simple physics, bicycles rarely cause injury accidents in the
same way that cars do. And yet, through our general taxes, we pay for all
of these facilities and services to a level that we do not need to get
around on a bike.

Our legislature is perceptive enough to realize bicycle licensing is not
cost-effective. It's cheaper to have bikes on the road than to develop an
elaborate bureaucracy to tax and limit their existence.

If you are upset about inequities in our tax system, you have good cause.
Studies show that Washington State has the most unfair state and local tax
system in the country -- the wealthy pay the least here, and the average
Joe pays the most. If you're feeling the pinch, you're not alone. But
don't blame bicyclists for that.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky


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  #2  
Old April 26th 06, 08:36 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
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Default Another letter to the editor


Claire Petersky wrote:

If you are upset about inequities in our tax system, you have good cause.
Studies show that Washington State has the most unfair state and local tax
system in the country -- the wealthy pay the least here, and the average
Joe pays the most. If you're feeling the pinch, you're not alone. But
don't blame bicyclists for that.


Claire, your writing just gets better and better. That last paragraph
effectively refocuses the argument in a way that's hard to refute, and
does so without insult or condescension. It's a model rebuttal.

Bravo!

RichC

  #3  
Old April 26th 06, 09:06 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
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Default Another letter to the editor

Claire Petersky wrote:
Maybe I just shouldn't read the newspaper.

---
Contrary to Dean Shirley's
(http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/app...OP01/604260329)
belief, bicyclists definitely
pay their fair share of taxes. snip


Claire - do you have a link also for whatever it was the King County
bicycle lobby was whining about?


Also, I'd like to see a representative pie chart of construction and
maintenance funding sources for roads and bike paths.
  #4  
Old April 27th 06, 01:22 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
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Default Another letter to the editor

"Diablo Scott" wrote in message
...
Claire Petersky wrote:


Contrary to Dean Shirley's
(http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/app...OP01/604260329)
belief, bicyclists definitely
pay their fair share of taxes. snip


Claire - do you have a link also for whatever it was the King County
bicycle lobby was whining about?


I'm pretty up on recent issues, but there's nothing in particular that leaps
out at me. The City of Seattle has a new initiative, but that's just the
City, and the Journal is a suburban paper. I think Mr. Shirley was doing a
general pout, not addressing a specific project.

Also, I'd like to see a representative pie chart of construction and
maintenance funding sources for roads and bike paths.


Me too!

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky


  #5  
Old April 27th 06, 04:50 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
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Default Another letter to the editor


"Claire Petersky" wrote in message
ink.net...
"Diablo Scott" wrote in message
...


Also, I'd like to see a representative pie chart of construction and
maintenance funding sources for roads and bike paths.


Me too!


Google is our friend:

Not many pie charts per se but some interesting comparisons for various
places:


http://www.mtc.ca.gov/library/2001_rtp/overview.htm

Billions of Dollars Percent of Total
1 Transit Operations 35.8* 44%
2 Transit Rehabilitation 15.6 19%
3 Transit Expansion 13.6 17%
4 Roadway Maintenance 11.5 14%
and Operations
5 Roadway Expansion 3.0 4%
6 Other** 2.1 2%
TOTAL $81.6 100%
*36% fare revenue/64% subsidy
**Other includes bike and pedestrian improvements, Transportation for
Livable Communities/Housing Incentive Program grants, system management,
etc.

http://www.ci.maitland.fl.us/2006Bud...ntsProgram.pdf

Transportation Improvements CRA
FY06 $ 41,604,758 5year $ 86,551,664
Transportation Improvements Rd.
FY06 $ 636,044 5Year $ 11,928,409
Pavement Treatment GF
FY06 $ 12,500 5year $ 1,936,150

Bicycle / Sidewalk Network GF
FY06 $ - 5 year$ 1,202,000

http://www.vabike.org/archive/ar97_2a2.htm

The typical roadway section for a secondary road in York or James City
County is two 12-foot lanes plus an 8-foot shoulder. If the estimated
traffic volume in the design year exceeds 2,000 vehicles per day, VDOT
design standards require paving the first 3 feet of the 8-foot shoulder.
Thus the shoulder consists of 3 feet of pavement and 5 feet of gravel.
Therefore, the marginal (or additional) cost to a road construction project
of adding a shoulder bike lane at the time of construction is the material
and labor cost of an extra 1-2 feet of asphalt on each side of the road (the
gravel shoulder is already a sufficient base). The marginal cost of a shared
roadway is, in most cases, zero. However, if a wide outside lane is the
chosen alternative, the labor and materials for 2 extra feet of pavement and
gravel base on each side of the road would comprise the marginal cost of
such a facility. It is very unlikely that this type of shared lane treatment
would be constructed on a new or substantially reconstructed road. It is
more likely to occur in a constricted right-of-way situation where curb and
gutter are used or in retrofit projects. However, in order to produce a
"worst case" cost example, it is used here.

Given the above assumptions, the costs from A Cost Model for Bikeways are as
follows:

Shoulder Bike Lane-asphalt, 2 feet in width on both sides: $1.85/linear foot
or $9,715 per mile.
Wide Outside Lane-asphalt plus aggregate base, 2 feet in width on both
sides: $3.72/linear foot or $19, 642 per mile.
These figures come from the detailed analysis done by HRPDC and include the
actual cost figures from the Old York-Hampton Highway and Centerville Road
projects in York County and James City County respectively.

In order to understand the relative costs of bike lanes, it is important to
compare them to two other figures:

Reconstructed Secondary Road-$ 1.2 - $1.9 million/mile
New Secondary Road on New location-$2.2 million/mile
As a percentage of total cost, bike lanes add approximately 1/2 of 1% to the
cost of the road projects contained in the adopted six-year plan.





  #6  
Old April 27th 06, 08:04 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc,alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent
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Default Another letter to the editor


"rdclark" wrote in message
oups.com...

Claire Petersky wrote:

If you are upset about inequities in our tax system, you have good cause.
Studies show that Washington State has the most unfair state and local
tax
system in the country -- the wealthy pay the least here, and the average
Joe pays the most. If you're feeling the pinch, you're not alone. But
don't blame bicyclists for that.


Claire, your writing just gets better and better. That last paragraph
effectively refocuses the argument in a way that's hard to refute, and
does so without insult or condescension. It's a model rebuttal.

Bravo!

RichC


It was nothing but a typical letter to the editor, guaranteed to put all to
sleep. Claire does not know how to go for the jugular. Only someone as Great
as I know how to do that. Unfortunately though, every time I do it it never
gets printed. Editors of newspapers can spot my type from a mile off and
want nothing to do with me. I am the master of insult and condescension. Is
there any other way to write?

But I thought Washington Sate was the most liberal state in the nation. If
so, how can it be that the average Joe is paying the most and the wealthy
are paying the least. I thought that was a Republican philosophy. The Great
Ed Dolan is all confused and confabulated by this startling revelation.
Surely, there is something rotten in Seattle here!

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota


  #7  
Old April 27th 06, 04:50 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
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Default Another letter to the editor

Claire Petersky wrote:

In fact, bicyclists subsidize the motorists. We don't require the same
amount of pavement that motorists need. We don't put the same wear and
tear on the roads that motorists create. We don't use the vast parking
facilities motorists need. We also pay for emergency response services,
but due to simple physics, bicycles rarely cause injury accidents in the
same way that cars do. And yet, through our general taxes, we pay for all
of these facilities and services to a level that we do not need to get
around on a bike.


Yes!

Free off-street parking is a clear example of a subsidy to motorists,
because it isn't actually free at all. The cost of buying the land,
and constructing and maintaining the parking spots, gets passed along
(in part or in total) to consumers in the form of higher prices. Every
time you buy something at the mega-mall, some portion of the price goes
to pay for the sea of "free" parking outside the mall. But whereas
drivers use those parking spots, bicyclists don't. Consequently, the
bicyclists are subsidizing the drivers.

The price of a gallon of gas (taxes included) doesn't cover the full
social cost of burning that gas (pollution, accidents, congestion, the
list goes on). In the case of congestion, the situation is especially
acute, since even the most fuel efficient cars clog up roadways. So
the argument that drivers are paying their fare share via their gas
taxes is, at best, only partially accurate.

As long as I'm joining you on the soapbox, I'll point out the obvious:
every bicycle trip removes a car from the road, which benefits the
remaining drivers. So rather than sniping at us, Dean Shirley should be
thanking us.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Josh (in Massachusetts)

  #8  
Old April 27th 06, 06:14 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
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Default Another letter to the editor


Bob wrote:
that's falling into the "us versus them" trap again.


Actually, I rather like the us vs. them point of view. I feel that way
very storngly when I read that our Congressmen rode in big, gas
guzzling vehicles approximately one block from their offices to a
photo-op in front of an Exxon gas station sign this morning (Washington
Post). Once there, they pontificated about the price of gasoline. One
block!

So yes... more us vs. them with regards to indecent automobile use is
just fine.

Defining people as good or bad based on their mode of
transportation is both silly and wrong


Why is it silly to say it is wrong to drive a car? When you see someone
motoring alone in a Suburban or Expedition or F150 pickup, who is not a
farmer or trademan, do you think those hundreds of horses are
contributing to our social welfare?

  #9  
Old April 27th 06, 07:14 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
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Default Another letter to the editor


Bob wrote:
Defining people as good or bad based on their mode of transportation is both silly and wrong, as silly and wrong as the letter to the editor that Claire posted that started this thread.


Indeed. And there are cases where one group subsidizing another
(partially or totally) may be a good thing. As a transportation policy
analyst, however, my bias is toward policies that promote equity and
efficiency. To the extent that acres of "free" parking helps hold
down the price of goods, that may be a good thing, but, clearly, there
are other costs associated with "free" parking.

More broadly, since gas prices don't reflect the full social costs of
automobile use, people who drive larger and less fuel-efficient
vehicles than are necessary are, in fact, imposing those costs (the
externalities) on the rest of us.

  #10  
Old April 27th 06, 07:27 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
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Default Another letter to the editor

There are, of course, plenty of reasons for someone other than a farmer
or a tradesman to drive a SUV or pickup truck. Calling down hellfire
and brimstone upon the driver of such a vehicle merely because the good
reason for his/her use of such a vehicle is latent is churlish at best.


When he was looking for his last vehicle, my father almost bought an
SUV. The reason was that he found it much easier to enter/exit than
most small vehicles (arthritis). Simply because ***you*** do not see
the reason behind a specific action does not mean that there is not a
good reason for it.

There are, of course, plenty of motorists who could just as easily
commute via bicycle. Since many of us live in quasi-free societies
where, for the moment, people are allowed to make their own poor
choices rather than have us, the illuminati, make their decisions for
them, we have to live with it. Come the revolution...

Jeff

 




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