Should Cyclists Pay for Registration, Road Tax, Insurance ...

[vja4Him]

Should bicyclists have to pay for registration, insurance and road tax for their bicycles?

[Alan]

Originally Posted by vja4Him

Should bicyclists have to pay for registration, insurance and road tax for their bicycles?

What's your take on those, vja4Him?

Registration fees to make such a program self-supporting, along with general inconvenience and lack of benefit to the bike owner, are too high for many (most?) bicycle owners to participate voluntarily, and enforcement isn't practical. That's been the case with nearly all places that have tried such programs. San Jose is a recent example that stopped bike registration.

Home owner's insurance, and I think some renter's policies, cover liability for bicycle collisions. Damage due to bike crashes tends to be low, often below any insurance threshold. I don't see big societal problems of damage caused by bikes, as there are with uninsured motorists.

Most bicyclists (all people, really - bikers, drivers or other) already pay taxes for roads. On a wear-and-tear or per mile basis, bikes pay relatively even more.

http://www.transalt.org/files/newsro...ovocateur.html





On average, the gas tax paid for only 35% of this figure. This means that non-automobile-related taxes pay for about 40% of the total cost of the road network.

[wsbob]

Originally Posted by vja4Him

Should bicyclists have to pay for registration, insurance and road tax for their bicycles?

If registration and road tax for bicycles existed in Oregon...which they don't...owners of bikes should of course, pay the related fees. Better questions might be:

1) What, that's road related, should cyclists possibly pay for?

2) Considering certain uses of the road according to specific types of vehicle, why should cyclists pay for "... registration, insurance and road tax for their bicycles?" .

[Haven_kd7yct]

Originally Posted by vja4Him

Should bicyclists have to pay for registration, insurance and road tax for their bicycles?

You do know that there's no such thing as a road tax, right?

If cyclists have to pay a road tax, then I think all road users should have to pay a road tax. Otherwise it's a punitive measure, taxing cyclists when no other road user pays a tax for the roads.

Oh-- maybe you were thinking that the gas tax pays for all the streets we get to ride on, and since we don't buy gas, we aren't paying for the streets?

Check out today's Monday Round-up for an illuminating article on the Streetsblog network about how the gas tax doesn't come anywhere near to paying for roads.

Besides all that-- I'm a cyclist, and I also own and drive a car. So I already pay the gas tax, thanks.

I also have insurance (house and car) and a driver's license. So I think I'm covered, thanks again.

In general, I think that everyone should have to take the written test again when they renew their license, with an extra section specifically on laws pertaining to bicycling and walking. That would educate a large swath of the population. Heck, make it open book even, like the notary public test.

[Alan]

Just filing another source in this thread, about how our roads are actually funded, for reference:

http://www.uspirg.org/home/reports/r...tation-funding

Do Roads Pay For Themselves? Setting the Record Straight on Transportation Funding

2011-01-04
Executive Summary

Highways do not – and, except for brief periods in our nation’s history, never have – paid for themselves through the taxes that highway advocates label “user fees.” Yet highway advocates continue to suggest they do in an attempt to secure preferential access to scarce public resources and to shape how those resources are spent.
...
... highway “user fees” pay only about half the cost of building and maintaining the nation’s network of highways, roads and streets.
...
To make the right choices for America’s transportation future, the nation should take a smart approach to transportation investments, one that weighs the full costs and benefits of those investments and then allocates the costs of those investments fairly across society.

Full report is a PDF with extensive footnotes.

PS - as long as I'm making a list...

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-09...uld-be-unfair/

Why an additional road tax for bicyclists would be unfair
Elly Blue, 27 Sep 2010

http://www.vtpi.org/whoserd.pdf

Whose Roads
Todd Litman, Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2004

In particular note Table 4 of Whose Roads (reformatted due to HTML constraints):

Example:
Two neighbors each pay $300 annually in local taxes that fund roads and 
traffic services. Mike Motorist drives 10,000 miles annually on local roads, 
while Frances Footpower bicycles 3,000 miles. The table below compares 
the costs they impose with what they pay in taxes.

Table 4 Local Roadway Payments Versus Costs
						Mike 	Frances
A. Annual local mileage 			10,000 	3,000
B. Household’s general taxes used for 
   road related services. 			$300 	$300
C. Motorist user fees spent on local 
   road (0.2¢ per mile). 			$24 	$0
D. Total road system contribution (B + C) 	$324 	$300
E. Tax payment per mile of travel (B/A). 	3.2¢ 	10¢
F. Roadway costs (cars = 5.6¢/ml, 
   bicycles = 0.2¢/ml) 				$560 	$48
	Net (D – F) 		      Underpays $236 	Overpays $252

Non-drivers pay almost the same as motorists for local roads but impose 
lower costs. As a result, they tend to overpay their share of roadway costs.

____________________________________________

2011-04-07
From BikePortland's front page, Editorial: GOP budget... :

http://www.portlandonline.com/omf/in...53164&a=310566
http://hungerreport.org/2010/report/...ed-development
http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/COMM/KeyFacts.shtml # ODOT's page on road funding
http://bikeportland.org/2010/04/23/h...nd-money-32426
http://www.bikesbelong.org/resources...ic-statistics/
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/03/04...ay-trust-fund/

____________________________________________

2011-05-06
http://www.uiowa.edu/~ican/Papers%20...ding012307.pdf

"On average, states raise 38% of their road funds from fuel taxes and 22% from vehicle
registration fees. Bonds make up 18% and the remaining 22% comes from other taxes and tolls."

Also breaks out by state the percentage of road funding based on fuel tax, and refers to several source docs such as:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs04/htm/sf1.htm

REVENUES USED BY STATES FOR HIGHWAYS - 2004

I am sceptical of those numbers. Oregon vehicle registration is among the lowest nationally and its fuel taxes are just a bit above average, so how do those figures end up so much higher than the national average?

The UIOWA ICAN study cites http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs04/htm/sf1.htm as the source of that data. That FHWA DOT data says:

Oregon 2004

HIGHWAY-USER REVENUES >>> 57.0%
- MOTOR- FUEL TAXES 385,463 >>> 32.2%
- MOTOR- VEHICLE AND MOTOR- CARRIER TAXES 297,253 >>> 24.8%
TOTAL RECEIPTS 1,198,718 >>> 100%

So, 57% user fees and taxes means that 43% came from other, non-user fees and taxes in Oregon in 2004. That's a big gap from the UIOWA numbers.

____________________________________________

http://publicola.com/2010/08/31/we-a...for-the-roads/ (redirects here)

"We All Pay For The Roads"
Josh Cohen, August 31, 2010
Seattle DoT (SDOT) numbers - gas tax is 4% of SDOT budget

____________________________________________

Not specifically about taxes and fees, but worthy anyway...

http://bikeportland.org/2011/05/04/s...vel-mode-52447

"How Do People Choose a Travel Mode? Factors Associated with Routine Walking & Bicycling"
Robert Schneider, UC Berkeley, May 6, 2011

____________________________________________

http://www.portlandonline.com/transp...34753&a=336810.

PBOT 2011/12 budget

Page 83 - Table 4: General Transportation Revenue Budget [mostly gas tax (61.6%) and parking (26.4%)]

Capital Improvement Program(CIP) is a smaller document starting on page 91 of the larger PDF. Page 107 of the large PDF (p. 16 of the CIP doc) has pie chart for CIP funding. General Transportation Revenue (GTR; gas tax, vehicle registration, parking and fines) makes up 38% of the pie, second largest after Grants & Contracts.
____________________________________________

18 May 2011

http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting...oregon_bi.html

Survey: 90 percent of avid Oregon bicyclists also own, drive cars
Friday, October 23, 2009
Joseph Rose, The Oregonian [Joe Rose]

http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting...selves_no.html

Do motorists pay for the roads they use? No, says public interest group
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Joseph Rose, The Oregonian

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Rep...-a-USDOT-Study [http://tinyurl.com/26n6wy7]

Federal Transportation Programs Shortchange Motorists: Update of a USDOT Study
June 8, 2009
Wendell Cox and Ronald Utt, Ph.D.

Rebuttal by rawillis3 in Oregonian January 06, 2011 comments, above:

"that study talks only about federal subsidies, measured in terms of the expenditure allocations of fuel taxes. it does not directly address where every dollar that is spent on each mode of transportation ultimately comes from. even where it says 40 percent of the federal highway trust fund is spent on things other than road, it lists a bunch of stuff that relates fairly directly to road infrastructure maintenance, development, and planning."

____________________________________________

27 May 2011

http://egov.oregon.gov/ODOT/DMV/fees/vehicle.shtml (Oregon vehicle registration fees; $86/2-year for cars, $48 motorcycles, $43 electric motorcycles)

2009 USDOT FHWA numbers:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinform...atistics/2009/ Highway Statistics 2009
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinform...s/2009/sdf.cfm Disposition of State Highway-User Revenues - 2009
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinform...s/2009/mf3.cfm Disposition of State Motor-Fuel Tax Receipts
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinform...cs/2009/df.cfm Disposition of Receipts From State Imposts on Highway Users
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinform...2009/lgf21.cfm Local Government Funding For Highways - Summary - 2008

...seems to show that local fund for road expenditures comes mostly from the general fund which everyone pays.

____________________________________________

8 July 2011

http://subsidyscope.org/transportati...funding/state/

"Using Federal Highway Administration data, Subsidyscope calculated that in 2007, user fees accounted for 51 percent of all road funding—a 10 percent decline over the previous decade and the lowest level since the creation of the Federal Highway Trust Fund in 1957."

____________________________________________

18 August 2011

http://bikeportland.org/2008/12/10/w...licenses-11954 - bike licensing

____________________________________________

thread jump

[OnTheRoad]

How about a weight-mile tax for ALL vehicles?

Those that cause the most damage to roads (after studded tires are made illegal at the ballot box this year) would be the heaviest trucks.

The vehicles that cause us to have to resurface roads and fix potholes constantly would be dinged for their negative impacts.

If all the road users were bicyclers, think how long the roads would last – not only the surfaces, but the lane geometry – less widening of roads to accommodate increased traffic

[Alan]

Originally Posted by OnTheRoad

Those that cause the most damage to roads (after tire chains are made illegal at the ballot box this year) would be the heaviest trucks.

You mean chains or studded tires? I've not heard of doing away with chains, and they're only used as a temporary measure when there is actually snow and ice on the road.

If all the road users were bicyclers, think how long the roads would last – not only the surfaces, but the lane geometry...

And road markings like bike lane stripes which routinely get worn away by cars cutting corners in this neck of the woods. Again, studs do way more damage in that regard than ordinary tires.

[scdurs]

The pie-chart you reference below deals with funding of State and Federal highways. City and county roads typically get far below the quoted 35% of their funding from the gas tax. One study in Seattle showed that .44% of 2009 Seattle street funding came from gas taxes. (http://www.publicola.net/2010/08/31/...for-the-roads/)

Check out these articles:
http://www.planetizen.com/node/46570
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/advocacy/free.htm
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-09...ould-be-unfair

Originally Posted by Alan

What's your take on those, vja4Him?

Registration fees to make such a program self-supporting, along with general inconvenience and lack of benefit to the bike owner, are too high for many (most?) bicycle owners to participate voluntarily, and enforcement isn't practical. That's been the case with nearly all places that have tried such programs. San Jose is a recent example that stopped bike registration.

Home owner's insurance, and I think some renter's policies, cover liability for bicycle collisions. Damage due to bike crashes tends to be low, often below any insurance threshold. I don't see big societal problems of damage caused by bikes, as there are with uninsured motorists.

Most bicyclists (all people, really - bikers, drivers or other) already pay taxes for roads. On a wear-and-tear or per mile basis, bikes pay relatively even more.

[Alan]

http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/j...axed/#comments

Yet another op-ed rant about those scofflaw, dead-beat bicyclists (y'know they're all alike, doncha?), all the same stuff that has been debunked time after time. Sheesh, why does The Columbian even publish such junk? They don't publish racist or sexist rants; isn't it time they moved past people with a grudge against bike riders?

(still hoping for a Vancouver/Clark County forum )

[dmc]

Alan, lol.

I like the reply from Irish Nativeson on that Columbian letter. "Jim must have bumped his head drinking the Kool-Aide out of the toilet."

You may notice some comments from facebook user Bob Larimer on the bottom of that letter. I also read another bicycle related letter for fun that The Columbian published. http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/j...und-vancouver/ Good ol' Bob had some more intelligence to share with us all.

My cheeks hurt from smiling so much.