Go Right Ahead and Try:

[Fairweather]

 

...or start paying for tags.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

I do pay for tags. For my car. Lick sack.

[rob]

I can't pay for tags for my bike because they don't have them for me to buy. So Sorry!

[olyclimber]

Are these like deer tags?

[Fairweather]

I might just start a collection of mangled and twisted 700c rims which I will hang from my garage rafters as macabre highway trophies.

[Nitrox]

Is there a bag limit?

 

 

[Gary_Yngve]

Pay for tags? Get real.

 

The majority of roadwork gets paid for via property taxes and sales taxes. The portion that gets paid for via gas tax tends to go just to limited access highways (interstates, etc.), where bicyclists usually cannot ride anyway.

 

With Eyman's reduction in car tab fees a few years ago, the fees pretty much just cover administrative costs -- licensing is justified because of the pollution a car causes and the proportional danger drivers can cause.

 

Note that the majority of adult cyclists own a car too, so they are paying those fees too. Even accounting for the loss in highway revenue from gas tax, realize that cycling puts negligible wear on the road compared to a car, and trucks put way more wear on the road than cars (truck fuel and associated fees filter down into the cost of goods we purchase).

 

Back in the day, some jurisdictions had optional bicycle tags and dabbled with required (but usually unenforced) tags, for the purposes of theft recovery. Now there are online tools where one can do it without govt bureaucracy.

 

Finally, note that the implementation of any form of bicycle/bicyclist licensing would be difficult to spell out. Would any of the following need a tag/license?

- a bike for a kid (how old would a kid need to be before being licensed?)

- a mountain bike

- a bike used on just multi-use trails or in your neighborhood

- a bike used only for racing

- a bike used as a spare / for parts

- crossing jurisdictions (if Bellevue implemented a tag/license law, and a Seattle resident biked through there without a Bellevue tag, would they be in the wrong?)

[sobo]

The majority of roadwork gets paid for via property taxes and sales taxes. The portion that gets paid for via gas tax tends to go just to limited access highways (interstates, etc.), where bicyclists usually cannot ride anyway.

Bullshit, Gary. Ever hear of either of these guys? TIB or CRAB That's just for Washington. They use gas tax money to fund local agency projects, that is, projects where you live. NOT limited access highways.

 

How about these guys? FHWA Sure, a lot goes to the interstates, but the various state DOTs can and do pair FHWA money (which comes from your federal income tax and the fees trucking outfits pay - not your property or sales taxes) with the DOT money (which comes from gas taxes), which also allows the FHWA to help fund more local projects through the state DOTs. Note that WSDOT can only spend money on roadways that are functionally classified. You may or may not have roadways in your locale that are functionally classified, so you can't just limit WSDOT's projects, and by extension, the FHWA's projects, to the interstates. Case in point, right now I'm managing two projects for local agencies (read: cities) that are being funded by the FHWA (financially administered through WSDOT), so your initial statement is patently false.

[billcoe]

I might just start a collection of mangled and twisted 700c rims which I will hang from my garage rafters as macabre highway trophies.

Sarah Para Bellum says: "bicycling reduces our dependence on foreign oil and liberates our country economically so bring it bitch".

 

 

So if you are pro-car and anti-bike, you suh, are Anti-American. That's right, Anti-American and a hater who wishes to destroy our fine way of life.

[Jim]

You may or may not have roadways in your locale that are functionally classified, so you can't just limit WSDOT's projects, and by extension, the FHWA's projects, to the interstates. Case in point, right now I'm managing two projects for local agencies (read: cities) that are being funded by the FHWA (financially administered through WSDOT), so your initial statement is patently false.

 

But aren't FHWA's funding for local project limtied to larger ones - such as the SR 202 bridge? They will not be funding road repairs on Eastlake for instance, which gets a lot of bicycle traffic. I'm assuming, for instance, that Seattle's road projects are primarily funded through local taxes and from their gas tax share - true?

[Gary_Yngve]

The majority of roadwork gets paid for via property taxes and sales taxes. The portion that gets paid for via gas tax tends to go just to limited access highways (interstates, etc.), where bicyclists usually cannot ride anyway.

Bullshit, Gary. Ever hear of either of these guys? TIB or CRAB That's just for Washington. They use gas tax money to fund local agency projects, that is, projects where you live. NOT limited access highways

 

First, note that I said "majority" and "tends", not "all" and "always".

 

If you read CRAB and TIB, you would see that:

- The annual county road department budgets for 2007 totaled about $1.3 billion, funded by local property taxes, a share of the state motor vehicle fuel tax, federal and state grants, and other sources.

- The funding for TIB's grant programs come from revenue generated by three cents of the statewide gas tax.

 

Looking up WA's motor vehicle fuel tax, you can see that it is 37.5 cents/gal, so TIB is less than 10% of it.

 

Now, moving on.. let's look at the King County budget

http://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/Budget/~/media/operations/Budget/2010%20Executive%20Proposed%20Budget%20Book/Transportation.ashx

 

On page 53, you can see that expenditures for roads are about 90M per year, with another 30M going to a roads construction fund. For the revenues, about 85M come from property taxes and 15M from gasoline taxes. I cannot find how much King County spends on bicycle/ped infrastructure, but Seattle spends less than 6% of their DOT budget: http://streetsforallseattle.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Streets-For-All-Seattle.pdf

 

Moving on to the state budget:

http://www.leg.wa.gov/Senate/Committees/WM/Documents/Publications/BudgetGuides/2010/CGTB2010Final_3.pdf

 

Washington DOT's funding is 7.6B per year on transportation (page 8).

Of that, only 2.7B is from gas tax, of which half goes to counties.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Finance/budget/BudgetPieCharts.htm

 

On the other hand, WSDOT shows well over 4B in highway-related expenses:

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Finance/budget/2009-11ExpendituresTable.htm

 

This means that the difference comes from grants, bonds (whose debts are paid via general fund), other taxes, etc.

 

So once again I say that it is the drivers who are getting the free ride from the cyclists, not the other way around (and either way, the point is moot if one owns a bicycle and a car).

[rob]

 

I dig your work, FW.

[Doug]

Every County in Hawaii requires you register your bike; typically a $15.00 fee. Their bike lanes are no where near as good as ours.

[j_b]

Classic propaganda poster. Just watch the "environmentalists are fascist pinkos" crowd claim they have always put the environment first.

[LostCamKenny]

i don't know much about tags and whether or not they should be required on bicycles, but cyclists most certainly should have to follow the same traffic laws as every other car, truck, or suv on the road. and enforcement should be revved up too since there are many cyclists who feel that they don't need to adhere to the rules of the road. i'll gladly share the road with bicycles so long as they are held to the same standard as motorists.

[AlpineK]

I've heard discussions on bike licenses. Yep you collect a fee, but then there's the enforcement costs. With millions of bikes out there enforcement would cost 20 times more than the license fee could possibly generate.

 

I'd agree with the concept of enforcing safe operation of a moving vehicle. If a biker is putting others at risk he/she may deserve a ticket.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

i don't know much about tags and whether or not they should be required on bicycles, but cyclists most certainly should have to follow the same traffic laws as every other car, truck, or suv on the road. and enforcement should be revved up too since there are many cyclists who feel that they don't need to adhere to the rules of the road. i'll gladly share the road with bicycles so long as they are held to the same standard as motorists.

 

A bike is not the same as a car.

 

How many bicyclists crash into other cyclists or pedestrians and kill them each year? Now compare to morons in their fucking SUVs.

 

If anything we should be more stringent on who gets driver's licenses and who gets them revoked for poor driving.

 

 

[Gary_Yngve]

i don't know much about tags and whether or not they should be required on bicycles, but cyclists most certainly should have to follow the same traffic laws as every other car, truck, or suv on the road. and enforcement should be revved up too since there are many cyclists who feel that they don't need to adhere to the rules of the road. i'll gladly share the road with bicycles so long as they are held to the same standard as motorists.

 

I would be all for increased enforcement of cyclists obeying the rules of the road if we'd have increased enforcement of motor vehicle drivers and pedestrians too. I constantly see drivers yakking on cell phones, going 45mph on Westlake, rolling through stop signs, failing to yield to peds at a crosswalk, etc.

 

I do also want to point out that there are many actions cyclists may take that drivers think are violations of the law (e.g., taking the lane), when they are actually legal and safe.

 

Finally, our society generally has the notion that the punishment is proportional to the danger/potential harm of the offense. Cars are much more lethal to others than bicycles. Additionally, the rules of the road were written for cars, and as such, are a little contrived for bicycles, because bicycles travel at lower speeds, are more maneuverable, and take up less space. Idaho has passed some progressive bicycle laws allowing rolling through stop signs and treating red lights as stop signs if no one else is around.

[faster_than_you]

To hell with increased enforcement of bike, pedestrian and auto rules/regs... It's enough of a police state now!

 

And no registration for bikes either!

[sobo]

You may or may not have roadways in your locale that are functionally classified, so you can't just limit WSDOT's projects, and by extension, the FHWA's projects, to the interstates. Case in point, right now I'm managing two projects for local agencies (read: cities) that are being funded by the FHWA (financially administered through WSDOT), so your initial statement is patently false.

 

But aren't FHWA's funding for local project limtied to larger ones - such as the SR 202 bridge? They will not be funding road repairs on Eastlake for instance, which gets a lot of bicycle traffic. I'm assuming, for instance, that Seattle's road projects are primarily funded through local taxes and from their gas tax share - true?

First question: No, not limited to larger projects. I've been involved with many many small projects over the years using FHWA funds, some as small as $250,000. Project size is not the limiting factor, just if your agency can squeeze the money out of FHWA or not. And that depends upon how good your representatives are...

Second question: Part 1 - Probably so. Part 2 - yes. Part 1: Seattle is a huge local agency, and has its own way of generating funds. Remember about 15 years ago when TBDs were first introduced? Transportation Benefit Districts they were called. Just before I started work on the first one in the state, they were found to be unconstitutional by a Seattle judge, and the program died on the vine. Part 2: A large part of your project budget does indeed come from your share of the gas taxes. There's more than one gas tax on a gallon of gas. You do know that, yes? Federal, state, and the TIB has a $0.03/gallon tax that's been in existence for 20 years and never has been approved for an increase by the voters. That's one of the reasons that the TIB is going under. And they are the easiest people to work with for getting money for projects, and they fund the greatest number of projects across the state. It will be a sad day if they go down, and it's actually looking that way.

[sobo]

The majority of roadwork gets paid for via property taxes and sales taxes. The portion that gets paid for via gas tax tends to go just to limited access highways (interstates, etc.), where bicyclists usually cannot ride anyway.

Bullshit, Gary. Ever hear of either of these guys? TIB or CRAB That's just for Washington. They use gas tax money to fund local agency projects, that is, projects where you live. NOT limited access highways

 

First, note that I said "majority" and "tends", not "all" and "always".

Point conceded. Indeed, I was extrapolating too much with your words. Apologies.

[Phil K]

"I might just start a collection of mangled and twisted 700c rims which I will hang from my garage rafters as macabre highway trophies."

 

You are just a barrel of laughs...sick fucker.

 

FW's idea of Fun

 

This is your idea of appropriate behavior when someone else interferes with your perverted sense of personal freedom? The driver, a physician who had worked on Hospital ER's for years told the 911 dispatcher that there were "no serious injuries" sustained. Apparently they were still ambulatory, and therefore not that badly off in his judgement. Nice guy. Maybe the two of you ought to go live on some desert island with no brown people or bicyclists around to disturb you sense of entitlement.

[sobo]

FW's idea of Fun

My god, that is hideous!

[jon]

Fairweather, does this mean you aren't riding your bike anymore to train?

 

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/379810/Re_Cycling_vs_Running#Post379810

[Fairweather]

Strictly mountain biking now. Better workout. Don't have to worry about cars. And, best of all best of all, I don't have to dress up in feminine multi-colored tights just to ride my freakin bike!