To put it more specifically, most fuel taxes go for limited access highways, and bicycles aren’t allowed on those. Neither, in the case of the parkways, are buses.

Roads should be supported with gasoline taxes not general funds and special sales taxes. But, then if that is fair, then bike infrastructure should be paid for by bicyclists.

fpteditors.

I can’t make a counter argument, but can you back your statement up? The private auto is an economic disaster? Or is this conventional wisdom that fits into the group think? Securitized mortgages, a FED that let the housing bubble keep going, and a Bush administration SEC that is flaccid are economic disasters. Our nation’s pension system is an economic disaster (this is “the other shoe”). It is unbelievable that people forget why autos and moving away from high density areas. There were and are benefits and that is why people pay good money to live in the suburbs and drive cars. You drank the cool-aid if you think the masses drive because they don’t have access to good bike infrastructure. The USA was once one of the most efficient economies in the world, and most people drove cars.

I pay $10,000 per year in property taxes. Some of that goes toward maintaining the streets of the upstate NY village and township in which I live. I bike to work and run errands every day in the rain, the sun, the dark, the snow, the ice, etc. I am a cyclist, and yes, I do help pay for the roads.

There is a reason people pay good money to drive and it is not because they have been brainwashed or don’t have choices, in fact most people make economic choices that result in them driving more. It is great that we peddle. We like to.

Speak for yourself. I don’t actually pedal very often. I ride transit, and I walk, and in the past year, lots of people have given up one or more cars, cut down on their driving, and switched to transit – and haven’t gone back.

There’s a reason why people have been moving back to the cities, and why housing prices in walkable neighborhoods have been weathering the crisis much better than those that require driving all the time. We can interpret people’s mode choices till the cows come home, but absent real data about subsidy-neutral choices, it’s all speculation.

As far as pedaling goes, many of my neighbors (even the few who drive for all their errands) have told me that if they could feel safe riding on the streets they’d do it. My parents live in a place that’s particularly isolated, and a beginning bike rider just can’t get to much of anything – but when they go to Florida, they leave the car at home and bike, walk or take the bus, and they like it.