Hey y'all. I've had this bouncing around in my head for a while so I decided to finally try and write it down as best I could.
I've found that practically every time an article on the main news website comes up about bicycles or something related to them, the comments sections are usually filled with misled outcries from grouchy bigotted people. Usual suspects range from angry outbursts that cities should stop putting in bicycle infrastructure with tax dollars to cries that cyclists shouldn't even be allowed to ride on the roads because "they don't pay for them like us car drivers do;" "maybe all those cyclists should start registering their bikes and paying insurance like we do before they start complaining about the roads." (Can't be too hard on them, though - they've probably spent most of their day stuck in traffic) In a nutshell:
This is bullshit. Complete, utter bullshit.
You pay tons of money to own a car, yes. My roommate spends more on her car per month that I do on groceries and booze combined (and I'm not shopping wholesale at Costco either). But that's it right there: you pay tons of money to OWN a car. Owning a car DOES NOT automatically give you a right to the road that I don't have.
First, the taxes. Yes, you pay taxes. So do I. So does everyone, for that matter. These “general taxes” (HST, income tax, etc) are NOT applied exclusively to people who drive cars, and they are (generally) the government’s general revenue, which is then used for whatever the hell the government spends it on, such as education, healthcare, and infrastructure, such as roads. Roads are a public space and are maintained as such by the public’s money; your paying taxes gives you a right to have a road, NOT to have a car.
To get yourself the privilege (not right) to drive your car on the public space of the road, you pay about $5000-8000 a year to own a car. This includes gas, insurance, maintenance, repairs, and payments if the silly thing isn’t fully cashed in yet. True, you pay lots for insurance and bikes do not, but here’s the thing: car insurance payments do NOT go into government coffers. Car insurance, is... well, car insurance. It insures your car so you don't get completely fucked over in the likely situation of getting in an accident at some point. I don't pay bike insurance because I don't need to and because it's not worth it. If my bike gets damaged, it's pretty cheap to fix it; if it gets stolen or irreperably busted, it's cheaper to get a new one than it would be to pay for insurance every month. In BC you’re all shackled to ICBC, an insurance company. Insurance companies do not pay for road maintenance, they simply make lots of money (also, anyone who’s had to deal with ICBC can attest that even if they did take responsibility for road repairs, they are far too busy infuriating people to actually do anything helpful).
“But what about gas and carbon taxes?” you cry. True, that money does go to the government and then gets used for all their governmenty things. However, gas and carbon taxes are basically just your normal taxes. You buy a hat, you pay tax on it; you buy gas, you pay tax on it; you consume and emit a ton of CO2, you pay tax on it. Guess what. When I go to Recyclistas and get new brake pads, I pay tax on them too – does this mean that I have more of a right to the road than you do? Paying tax on things for your car doesn’t give you any more right to the road than my paying tax for new lights or cable housings does.
Basically, the point I’m trying to make is this: owning a car does not automatically award you more right to use the road than I have, especially if you’re just talking about “paying” for it. The hilariously high amount of money you pay every month for your car is for the “privilege” of owning the damn thing (and I sure wouldn’t call it a privilege). Insurance payments do not go into repairing and maintaining roads (which, ironically, is only necessary because of your driving), and your tax payments are for essentially the same reasons as mine. We have the exact same right to that road, it’s not our fault that you’ve chosen the most expensive way of exercising it.
As always, please respond with any thoughts or whathaveyou. Feedback is always great, particularly from the other side.
And now, a bookend. I can only dream:
Thirty-five thousand people. Thirty-five thousand bicycles.
