Suburban Resident: Bicyclists don’t pay to use roads
I could not believe the ignorance behind this letter to the editor:
Letter to the editor: Bicyclists don’t pay to use roads
Wentzville Journal
09/21/2005Bicyclists don’t pay to use roadsIn response to Jim Seyer’s letter in the Sept. 11 Journal, you proved Mr. Hepperman’s statement is right.
As Missouri taxpayers who own automobiles, we pay sales tax, fuel tax, personal property tax, and real estate tax to pay for the uses of the roads. Then we stand in line every two years to register our automobiles. We must also have insurance on these vehicles before we are allowed to drive on public roads.
The taxes that you pay don’t give you the right to ride your bike on the roads. If you look on your tax receipt, you will see that personal property includes: passenger cars, trucks, trailer. R/Vs, buses, motorcycles and other motorized vehicles. Do you claim your bicycle on your personal property tax form?
Driving in the State of Missouri is a privilege not a right. If you feel that you have the right to ride your bike, then claim your bike on your taxes, register it to be licensed and have it inspected every year or two. Also follow the laws of the road by riding single file so not to impede traffic. You should have a license plate that is visible.
Mr. Hepperman wasn’t claiming to own the rood, he was trying to help you understand that bicyclists on public roadways are a hazard to everyone, including yourself. But when we try to pass bicyclists on the road — that our taxes pay for – you people act like you own the road.
Patrick Dyer
Lake Saint Louis
Public roads are public rights of way. Without public roads we would have to negotiate with private property owners for their permission to cross to buy a loaf of bread. The use of the public right of way is not a privilege but a right. However, driving a motorized vehicle within the public’s right of way is a privilege!
First, all of Mr. Dyer’s complaints about taxes just doesn’t add up. Does he really think his fuel taxes, registration and personal property tax pay for the roads he uses? Sorry bud, not even close. Who pays for all the interstate highway building and utility infrastructure required to keep suburbia alive? The rest of us. He should be thanking everyone that rides a bike because we are leaving more room in the budget to support his choice of private car.
But if he wants people to pay their fare share I’m all for it. Lets start with public schools. I have no kids nor will I ever. I’ve been paying taxes for over 10 years because parents aren’t paying their fair share of education for their kids. And what if all the fuel taxes generated from the City of St. Louis were to stay only in the City of St. Louis? Same for St. Louis County. St. Charles County would collapse under its own weight.
Mr. Dyer is so wrapped up in the auto centric society he can’t see the folly of his “logic.”
– Steve
First, I’d wager that My Dyer probably sends his kids to private school, so he’d already say he’s paying his “fair share”, or maybe he’d join your battle cry (I won’t, but that’s a topic for a different day).
[REPLY – To clarify I intended for my comment on schools to be sarcastic. I fully expect as a member of society to help education our society just as I expect all of us to pay for public infrastructure. It gives all of us the right to question how much structure and where but not to question to right to access. – SLP]
I think a much better fault for his logic would be things like TIF or the way in which sewers, water service, and *roads* are subsidized into what was once useful, fertile farmland. Neither the developers nor the primary beneficiaries of the space are paying their “fair share”.
Further, most of the taxes that he cites simply go into the general revenue fund (with the recent exception of motor vehicle taxes). The question to be posed is not whether non-motorized road users are paying their fair share, but whether motorized users are, indeed, paying enough of their share. Many of the costs of roads exist NOT because cyclists or pedestrians want to use them, but because motorized vehicles want to use them, or because the rampant use of motorized vehicles made the existing public right-of-way inadequate.
I have a car, I enjoy some of the freedoms it permits me, but am not so foolish to not recognize that there ARE more efficient means of transporting myself and my family.
Simply stated, Mr. Dyer is a myopic putz–a fault shared with many others, unfortunately.
He’s a “Fossil” Fool!
Keep Cycling!
Jeff
OK.
I admit it. I’m a freeloader.
From now on, I will pay to use the roads with my bike and my feet and my bus, and to use the space taken up by Metrolink and the El as well.
The deal is, he has to pay all the medical bills that us eco-transit folks incur as a result of his polluting. He has to pay everybody a little bit of time off his life to make up for the damage he’s doing to our lungs. He has to pay to repair stained buildings, global warming (yes, that is the pricetag of Hurricane Katrina you see listed on this invoice), and to rebuild all the neighborhoods ruined by highways. He can start with the years of his life thing, and then he can repair Old North St. Louis, where the first interstate in America was built. It’s his choice whether he wants to pay to save ruined lived of displaced ONSL residents, or whether he would rather pay to replicate all the road-ruined 19th century architecture first.
Mr. Car Driver, is this a deal? It sounds fair to me. I’ll draw up a contract and you can drive over here and sign it, OK?
Yours truly,
NEVER DRIVEN A MILE IN MY LIFE.
Given your previous and potentially future political ambitions, (Ok maybe not ambition but willingness to take on the hassle) what are you opinions on school vouchers.
Paying for the public good makes sense, but what if you never intend to place a burden on the a certain public system. We all use roads but we don’t all use the schools. I understand that we don’t want to hurt the school system further. However as someone who has relatives who work for the SLPSD I can say that a lack of competition and motivation among the staff (administrative not faculty) seems to be a major problem.
Also where do you stand on the Metrolink Debacle.
[REPLY – Quality education is a major issue and I don’t feel that I am qualified to make a reasoned argument on how to solve the problem – how is that for a political answer?
As for the current MetroLink issue I’m working on a post on the subject. In short I’m disappointed by the cost overruns but I question the motivations of those trying to stop the project. – SLP]
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