What made the last big bike boom? The next?

Tim McNamara wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Carl Fogel) wrote:

Wouldn't it be simpler to teach your kids not to leave open liquor
bottles, empty or otherwise, rolling around in your car in the
first place?

Now, see, that's just it. Our kids *don't* keep the bottles in the
car. They throw them out the passenger window, where the bottles
smash right on the part of the road that bicyclists ride on. You,
like so many others, seem to lack the common sense approach of
teaching our kids not to drink and drive in the first place.

Now, I personally think that them who creates the problem should pay
for straightening it out. That's people in cars- bicyclists aren't
out smashing bottles in the bike lanes as a general thing. Virtually
every broken bottle on the street came out of a car. If we can't hold
the individual culprits accountable, then it gets spread out among the
whole class of people.

Dear Tim,

You seem to be confusing me with Pete.

Carl Fogel

Xelax wrote:
and the last government
introduced generalized RTOR (Right-Turn-On-Red) - they had the gall of
passing it off as an environmental and energy saving measure!!! The new
government upheld that decision, and even extended it to the island of
Montréal. Makes me puke.

What's wrong with right turn on red?
Are Montréal residents too stupid to stop and yield before turning?
Mitch.

....stuff deleted

What's wrong with right turn on red?
Are Montréal residents too stupid to stop and yield before turning?
Mitch.

I can't speak for Canadians, but there is a significant portion of
Californians who are this stupid.

Rick

(Carl Fogel) wrote in message

Wouldn't it be simpler to teach your kids not to leave open liquor
bottles, empty or otherwise, rolling around in your car in the first
place?

MY kids of course would NEVER be in a car with alcohol. But they
certainly could tell their friends that, hey, they train on the these
roads, so please don't break bottles on the shoulder.

While the 'teach your kids' comment was actually an attempt to be
humorous, I'm dead serious about Open Container laws. They DO
encourage empty beer bottles to fly out of windows. Since an empty
(or half-emtpy) bottle does not actually drive a car, the law is
obviously there to help the police prosecute drivers who aren't drunk
enough to be convicted of DWI.

Some states don't have this law, though I understand they're at
jeopardy of losing federal highway funds without it.

Of course I don't want drunk drivers on the road and I don't want kids
drinking, but I also don't want broken glass all over the road. I
wouldn't mind flatting so often if I believed that these ridiculous
"emtpy container" laws were actually making the roads safer.

Carl Fogel wrote:

But has anyone disguised as a responsible adult
suggested that we bicyclists should pay a bicycle
tax or user fee to fund a cleanup that seems to be
solely for our benefit? Motorists aren't complaining
about flat tires.

You overlook one major problem.

No matter how much money goes into public coffers for road building and
maintenance, without fail it will not be spent caring for roads until
they are terminally ill and far more costly to repair (replace.)

When control over these budgets gets out of the hands of the politicians
and into the hands of the people that do the work (assuming they are on
the up and up) better roads will be the product.

Myself, I live near affluent comunities and even their bikelanes are
rarely cleaned and often damaged by roots or sinkholes.

Richard Adams wrote in message ...
[snip]

No matter how much money goes into public coffers for road building and
maintenance, without fail it will not be spent caring for roads until
they are terminally ill and far more costly to repair (replace.)

When control over these budgets gets out of the hands of the politicians
and into the hands of the people that do the work (assuming they are on
the up and up) better roads will be the product.

[snip]

Dear Richard,

I'm not quite sure what you're saying. If politicians do not
control public road maintenance budgets, who will?

That is, who are these "people that do the work" whom you see
taking control of the road maintenance budgets?

The road maintenance crews actually "do the work" of sweeping
glass off streets, but I suspect that they aren't the people
that you have in mind. Perhaps you mean unelected road maintenance
department administrators?

In any case, won't anyone who controls a public budget become
a de facto politician, the target of numerous groups demanding
more services and lower taxes?

Carl Fogel

Carl Fogel wrote:
David Damerell :
I don't know about the USA, but in the UK, vehicle excise duty, fuel tax
etc. are not hypothecated. As a cyclist who does not drive I pay
considerably more tax per mile travelled than a motorist - never mind that
my vehicle does not damage the road, I need a less wide road, and I do not
pollute.
But as "a cyclist who does not drive," you presumably do not pay
vehicle excise duty, fuel tax, and so forth, do you?

No, I don't, but those are small sums compared to the general taxation
which I do pay.

My point is that we bicyclists pay less--as bicyclists

This is nothing more than the pretense of hypothecation, which we still
don't have. I pay almost as much tax as a motorist with a similar income;
I then clock many fewer miles on a vehicle that does not damage the roads
or demand such wide spaces.

of us in this thread are demanding extensive and expensive services that
seem to be solely for our benefit. The roads are built and paid for by
a vast majority of motor vehicle users, not the tiny minority of
bicyclists.

No, they are not; they are paid for by all taxpayers, and the truly
extensive and expensive service is roadbuilding itself, most of which is
done solely for the benefit of motorists. The cost of debris sweeping
would be trivial by comparison.
--
David Damerell Kill the tomato!

Carl Fogel wrote:
As citizens, you and I and 98 out 100 other people must
pay various taxes for roads. You and I would like these
roads swept free of glass that bothers our four bicycle
tires. But what argument will you use to convince the other
98 taxpayers to fund the cleaning services that you and I
want?

For starters, the fact that I pay for roads to be built wide enough for
the motor cars of the proportion of them who drive, for motorways to be
built that I cannot even use, for the roads to be repaired after their
cars chew them up, for the National Health Service to heal the people they
injure, for the Police time and effort spent in preventing them from
killing still more of us, et cetera; which is all rather more costly than
sweeping the streets.

Of course your argument is nonsensical, because any public service funded
out of taxation does not benefit every taxpayer; clearly any given
taxpayer must expect to sometimes be paying for things they do not use,
but to also have the services they do use funded. I pay for motorways I
don't drive on, but illiterates pay for public libraries that I borrow
books from.
--
David Damerell Kill the tomato!

On 3 Oct 2003 21:33:15 -0700, (Carl Fogel)
wrote:

Long-winded, sure, but what's complicated my post?

My point is that if a handful of bicyclists want the streets
swept so well that our delicate tires don't suffer, then who
should be taxed for such expensive services?

(Actually, a quick search failed to find the word "fair" in my
posts, but I think that you're entitled to infer it.)

The motorists aren't complaining. No one but us is crying
out for more street sweeping crews driving more expensive
machines for longer hours--and not too many of us.

What taxes do we bicyclists pay that motorists or pedestrians
are exempt from? We pay the same taxes (or less) to maintain
the motor vehicle roads that everyone depends on--the very
bicycles ridden by the most vehement posters arrived by truck
from the bike factories.

Again, you have taken far too long to get to your point; and in the
process; made it more complicated than it has to be.

Fact: Most funding for roads and other things that support automobile
usage does not come from the gasoline tax or vehicle registration
fees; it comes from general funds.

Fact: When I bike to work instead of driving; I do not get a refund on
any of those taxes; despite being responsible for far less cost than
if I chose to drive that day.

Fact: The trucks that deliver the goods that we "rely" on could be
served by a much smaller roadway network. Most of the cost of roads in
urban and suburban areas in the US is due to suburban commuters and
their automobiles; not to delivery traffic.

Conclusion: Cyclists already get a bum deal; especially on local
streets (i.e. non signed highways); which in jurisdictions in the US,
rarely receive any significant amount of monies from gasoline taxes.

Sweeping the streets a bit more often helps make up a bit of that gap;
but not all of it.

---
Mike Dahmus
m dah mus @ at @ io.com

On 3 Oct 2003 08:39:32 -0700, (g.daniels) wrote:
scrap it off to the side with the dayglo poster paper squares brought
alongside that black rack bag so the local urchins can hemmorhage.

That was unintelligible. However, it has redeeming value in how
much it sounds like it ought to be a lyric in a Jethro Tull song...
--
Rick Onanian