On cycling, taxes, and fallacies
“Roads are paid for by (gasoline) taxes, which cyclists don’t pay - only car drivers pay them.”
How often have you heard this? People really love their cars, holding tight (with a deathgrip) onto the antiquated ideas of personal freedom and accomplishment that come with owning cars that they were sold in yesteryear. Too often, these car proponents are also bicycle opponents and use variations of the above quote as justification of their view point (lifestyle); other variations include licensing and taxing bicycles (other than sales tax), generally a bunch of unnecessary red tape and paperwork. But there are so many things wrong with those statements.
Firstly, just to get beyond the us vs them mentality and even entertain this fallacy for a moment; how do you know I don’t have a car? How can anyone tell by sight that someone owns a car or not, I actually had two cars this winter; I pay gasoline taxes, excise taxes, sales tax, licensing, inspection, registration just like the next person. I’ve paid my fees, let me use the public roads how I want.
Secondly, the public roads are just that - public. Roads to be used by the public (regardless of their method of conveyance), motor vehicle ownership is thankfully not a prerequisite for use of public roads. There may be restrictions and regulations on vehicles used on public roads, but just like other public facilities, there is no section of the public that has more or less rights to use them.
Thirdly, even the economic part of this argument is wrong - gasoline taxes do not pay for public roads (in their entirety). There are two parts of the gasoline tax: The federal gasoline tax (18.4 cents per gallon) only contributes to federal road projects (i.e. interstate highways), bicycles (as well as horses and pedestrians) are not allowed on these limited access highways anyway, so this part of the tax is moot for this conversation. The state gasoline tax (23.5 cents per gallon in Massachusetts) is used in part for state highways. However, it does not cover all road construction and maintenance costs - the rest comes from the general tax fund (i.e. Sales, Income). It also covers very little of the costs of local roads (paid for by towns, i.e. Property), which are the roads most cyclists use. The costs of most of the roads that cyclists use (and people complain about) come from general tax funds, which cyclists pay just as much of as any resident.
The true economics of the situation are that everyone pays to build and maintain roads and a 15-30lb bicycle going 10-25mph creates much less wear and tear on a road compared to a 2000lb car traveling 30-60mph. A paved road intended for cycling use is cheaper to build and cheaper to maintain than something needing to handle motor vehicle traffic. Cars should in fact be surcharged for wearing down the public roads faster, and indeed they are. To turn this logic around on a cyclist, is silly.
I’m well aware there these arguments and talking points are often moving goalposts, so here’s to the next goalpost.
Many thanks to Mark McMaster for the original email and point of view back in October of 2007 that inspired these thoughts that have been stewing in my head for the past four years.
