Cyclists take over City Hall
This letter to the editor appears in this morning's SF Chronicle:
Are bikes taking over City Hall?
I wanted to comment on the City Insider column "Bike riding to get boost" (June 19) on spending upwards of $600 million to expand bike lanes and make other improvements to make riding more comfortable for riders.
Ah...what?
Don't get me wrong, I ride too on occasion and don't hate bikes. But I thought the Municipal Transportation Agency was crying that there was no money to fix Muni even after jacking up parking rates and Sunday meter times. How can they find this kind of money for what is a small yet vocal minority to make things "more comfortable"? What happened to the mantra "Transit First"? Bike riders don't even pay registration fees or gas taxes to help fund the improvements San Francisco has made so far. Seems like the SFMTA is becoming more and more of a shill for the Bicycle Coalition.
Robert Schaezlein
San Francisco
Labels: Anti-Car, Bicycle Coalition, City Government, Muni
posted by Rob Anderson @ 10:37 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
"registration fees or gas taxes" don't "help fund the improvements San Francisco has made so far"
This guy is clueless.
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tpp/offices/eab/fundchrt_files/Transportation_Funding_in_California_2011.pdf
This document was put out by the Department of Transportation. Look at Chart 1. You can see very clearly that the state fuel taxes find their way down to "Local Roads". You can also see that the federal fuel taxes find their way down to public transit. And regardless of this, NOBODY isn't buying consumer goods or food that aren't brought in by a truck. And nobody isn't living in a house whose building materials aren't brought in by truck.
You can also see that the state FUEL tax, goes into the state bicycle transportation account.
And of course local and state sales taxes, bonds that we are all responsible for all go to pay into the funds to maintain the roads, although I think it wouldn't be tough to state that if driving costs more (buying a car, maintenance, etc.) that motorists are paying higher sales taxes.
Sounds like you're the clueless one, so stop being a dick.
NOBODY isn't buying consumer goods or food that aren't brought in by a truck. And nobody isn't living in a house whose building materials aren't brought in by truck.
Really?
Then I guess the argument that "Bike riders don't even pay registration fees or gas taxes to help fund the improvements San Francisco has made so far." is HORSESHIT. Because EVERYBODY is buying things shipped on trucks which pay gas taxes.
Dear Anon,
What you are saying is exactly what I am saying. That we all need the roads because we all buy things that get to us via trucks, which use the roads. Calm down, Mr. Horseshit. But on TOP of that, the motorists pay fuel taxes which come back to the bicyclists in the ways shown on the chart.
Point is, that the first commenter was scoffing at the idea that fuel taxes don't pay for roads - they do.
I realize that I used a triple negative in my OP, so I can see why it was confusing/wrong. Sorry for the grammatical error - my above post is what I meant to say.
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