From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Subject: Re: Roads and Taxes (was Re: NEWS: True Costs of )
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 15:59:46 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

wcarroll@encore.com (William Carroll) writes:

>>No, and I know of no US comprehensively developed transportation based on
>>the rickshaw or the pogo stick or for people who walk on their hands 
>>either.

>Of course, a large percentage of Americans own bikes. Can you say the same
>for pogo sticks and rickshaws? Lots of Americans use bikes as transportation.
>Is the same true for pogo sticks and rickshaws?

Some percentage of Americans own bikes (I hesitate to call it "large"
unless you want to wrap in all the kiddie bikes) but at least around here
(and everywhere else I've lived in the East), very few take them outside
their neighborhoods.  One occasionally sees a bozo making a traffic hazard
of himself out on a main road but that is so seldom as to be notable.
Installing bike trails here would make little difference.  The terrain
is too hilly and most people have no interest in sweating and stinking
on the way to and from work or wherever.  

>>>It can be downright dangerous to get anywhere on a bike.
>>>Snow is not usually cleared from these lanes in the winter, and in the summer
>>>they are littered with gravel, branches, glass, and dead animals.
>>
>>Might I suggest you avail yourself of some form of transportation more
>>amenable to conditions extant?  Like, for  instance, a car.

>So where is everyone going to drive those cars, John? Can they double the
>number of lanes on I-75 through downtown Atlanta once more? Are you
>willing to pay the bill for that project?

Yes and yes.  Doubling again won't be necessary but even if it were,
stacked lanes similar to those in 'Frisco are certainly practical.
Considering how easy it is to pass roads-related sales tax initiatives
around here, one can assume the majority of Atlantans feel the same way.
The only ones we hear around here carping this fringe stuff are the 
federal carpetbaggers.

>And what about the people who can't afford cars? You know, those same
>working poor that will fair so badly under a gas tax. Since you are
>proposing a transporation system that requires a car, are you willing to
>provide a car to everyone that can't afford one? If not, how are they
>going to get to work? Or do they just go on welfare instead?

Oh, my heart's breaking.  This is such a stale tactic.  You people on
the Big Government side of the equation seem to always roll out the 
poor when it is convenient to your argument.  Then, of course, you roll
'em back to the ghetto when you no longer need them.  The poor around
here don't seem to have too much trouble buying some kind of car.
Oh sure, the government doesn't give them enough to buy a Benz but 
they can buy basic transportation.  Hell, my daily driver, the 
"Rolls Knardley" (rolls down one hill and knardly get up the next),
cost me $500.  I bought this 68 Fury III to use as in a demonstration
project to show how easily and cheaply such cars can be cleaned up.  
I've delayed the project a bit because it is sooo much fun watching 
the yups in their $40k cars screw up their noses when the Knardley's
carb float sticks and the smoke rolls :-)

The fact is the working poor already pay little income tax because 
of current exemptions.  What this lovely gas tax advocated by Stead and
presumably yourself would do is force the poor out of their cars
because their real cost of transportation becomes more than they can
afford.  That's your real goal, isn't it?  Keep 'em down in the ghetto
where they can't cause too much trouble and can't add to the road
congestion.  Such hypocrisy is disgusting.

>And you never did say what you thought a cyclist's fair share of road costs
>would be. I'd love to see your numbers.

Since I like to be right when I quote numbers and since I don't have
those numbers, I'll refrain from shooting numbers out my ass as others have.
In general terms, however, I can say that the cost of opportunity, 
that is, the cost of making a roadway available to you, is the same 
with bicycles as it is cars.  GA DOT  has publicly stated that cars
contribute little to road surface damage so the unit cost of repair is
about the same.  There probably ought to be a nuisance tax on bicycles
as well.

John
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