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I vote liberal and own a bicycle and am willing to pay a user fee for using bicycle paths because I think it's fair. I go to coffee shops and see cyclists with their expensive bicycles drinking their expensive designer beverages. Again, this isn't kids in the northeast riding WalMart bicycles or the guy with a crap job drinking coffee at Tim Horton's, we're talking about cyclists with all the gear refusing to pay their own way because they're cheap skates and would rather leach off of government funding.
You haven't addresses our point: why do car users leech off government funding, then, since their "user fees" cover a very small percentage of the actual costs of car infrastructure?
And again, maybe those people you're saying don't ride bikes don't do so because of lacking infrastructure to make it safe and accessible... Maybe we should just do it like this: any part of infrastructure construction and maintenance not covered by user fees, for any transportation mode, will not be addressed... Maybe if roads are unsafe for motorized vehicles, less people will ride them and it'll be safer for other users to start taking up more space...
 
I also laugh hard about "taking away parking from residents". As if street parking was a god-given right and the city, and taxpayers, had the obligation of subsidizing street parking for private vehicles. Want parking for your house? BUILD A GARAGE, or ar the very least, a driveway. And don't use it for storage.
 
Homeowners weren't given the choice of paying a fee for street parking or having a bike path constructed in front of their homes. I don't know what their decisions may have been but if you insist that there should be a fee for street parking than there also needs to be a fee for bike path users. So pay up!

I didn't address your other point because it's not relevant. Vehicular traffic far exceeds bicycle traffic so its margin cost per user is lower but beyond that vehicular traffic has a much larger GDP generating parameter than cycling does.
 
Homeowners weren't given the choice of paying a fee for street parking or having a bike path constructed in front of their homes. I don't know what their decisions may have been but if you insist that there should be a fee for street parking than there also needs to be a fee for bike path users. So pay up!

I didn't address your other point because it's not relevant. Vehicular traffic far exceeds bicycle traffic so its margin cost per user is lower but beyond that vehicular traffic has a much larger GDP generating parameter than cycling does.
You provide absolutely no source for the cost assumptions. Also, private, individual vehicular traffic is not a GDP generating parameter.

And no one is saying there should be a fee for street parking, but rather pointing out that we're all subsidizing stretches of public road for private use, and that this should not be something that guides urban design principles. Bike lanes benefit a substantially larger amount of individuals than subsidized, "free" private parking for people in front of their homes. Again, you want a guaranteed parking spot right by your front door? BUILD A GARAGE OR A DRIVEWAY. Otherwise, the general public benefit far outweights private needs, from a city planning standpoint.
 
You provide absolutely no source for the cost assumptions. Also, private, individual vehicular traffic is not a GDP generating parameter.

And no one is saying there should be a fee for street parking, but rather pointing out that we're all subsidizing stretches of public road for private use, and that this should not be something that guides urban design principles. Bike lanes benefit a substantially larger amount of individuals than subsidized, "free" private parking for people in front of their homes. Again, you want a guaranteed parking spot right by your front door? BUILD A GARAGE OR A DRIVEWAY. Otherwise, the general public benefit far outweights private needs, from a city planning standpoint.
I don't have a government statistical source for you but you should be able to use your common sense to accept the validity of the assumption. If you needed to take a package across the city or say to Leduc. Would you use a bicycle or a vehicle? Presumable you'd use a vehicle because you should intuitively know that's it's the more efficient way of doing it. Therefore the GDP generated by using a vehicle is greater than by using a bicycle in virtually all instances other than short distance. And does some leisurely vehicular travel bring down the size of the parameter? Sure, but cyclists use roads too.

What is the source of your public benefit assumption? You're simple substituting the free parking benefit from a homeowner to a cyclist. You can't compare an individual homeowner to the aggregate of cyclists. You need to compare the aggregate number of homeowners to the aggregate number of cyclists if you want to assign value to the free parking. And if wish to assign value to the free parking than you also need to assign value to the cycling path and the benefit cyclists will receive.
 
Is there a reason why you and Constance refuse to make a financial contribution, in the form of a user fee, to your transportation of choice? Everybody else does. You can debate whether your property tax already covers your bike path usage adequately, but is your refusal based on financial reasons or something else?
It’s based on reality. When you pay a transit fare, you’re paying for operating costs of a driver and vehicle you didn’t purchase. When you pay a gas tax, you’re contributing to a huge financial burden that road infrastructure is.

what you’re arguing for is more like suggesting there should be tolls for all collectors and freeways in Edmonton. Roads, bike lanes, transit, etc are all supported by taxes.

Then the HIGHER costs of transit and car infrastructure we also seek to subsidize with gas taxes and fares.

If our bike network was equivalent to the coverage of our bus network, I would gladly pay an additional cost for that.

But that’s the other issue. Having literally less than 100km of serperated bike lanes, yet 11,000 kms of roadways doesn’t justify a equal payment either. Build bike infrastructure to anywhere close to the level of our road network and then we can talk.

You’re trying to draw equivalencies between things that are not the same.

And a question for you. If people don’t drive, and especially don’t use transit too, should they get a “refund” on all the taxes they pay towards roads? Or are you happy for them to keep subsidizing you?
 
I don't have a government statistical source for you but you should be able to use your common sense to accept the validity of the assumption. If you needed to take a package across the city or say to Leduc. Would you use a bicycle or a vehicle? Presumable you'd use a vehicle because you should intuitively know that's it's the more efficient way of doing it. Therefore the GDP generated by using a vehicle is greater than by using a bicycle in virtually all instances other than short distance. And does some leisurely vehicular travel bring down the size of the parameter? Sure, but cyclists use roads too.

What is the source of your public benefit assumption? You're simple substituting the free parking benefit from a homeowner to a cyclist. You can't compare an individual homeowner to the aggregate of cyclists. You need to compare the aggregate number of homeowners to the aggregate number of cyclists if you want to assign value to the free parking. And if wish to assign value to the free parking than you also need to assign value to the cycling path and the benefit cyclists will receive.
I do love the point in every debate with a carbrain when they start talking about biking to Leduc to like pick up a fridge or something stupid.

The majority of car trips are less than 10kms and made by 1 person carrying less than what fits in a backpack/purse/bag.

Also, GDP isn’t the “perfect metric”. When someone is killed from a car collision, it can benefit the GDP through increased emergency, healthcare, mechanic, insurance, legal, and funeral home expenses. That a win?

Know what’s a win? Not forcing a 16 year old to pay for a vehicle to drive 5km to their summer job. Not forcing families to need 2 vehicles to make commutes and errands and life with kids possible. Not forcing people who can’t afford a car into a debt spiral of crappy cars and repairs cause no alternatives are offered.
 
I do love the point in every debate with a carbrain when they start talking about biking to Leduc to like pick up a fridge or something stupid.

The majority of car trips are less than 10kms and made by 1 person carrying less than what fits in a backpack/purse/bag.

Also, GDP isn’t the “perfect metric”. When someone is killed from a car collision, it can benefit the GDP through increased emergency, healthcare, mechanic, insurance, legal, and funeral home expenses. That a win?

Know what’s a win? Not forcing a 16 year old to pay for a vehicle to drive 5km to their summer job. Not forcing families to need 2 vehicles to make commutes and errands and life with kids possible. Not forcing people who can’t afford a car into a debt spiral of crappy cars and repairs cause no alternatives are offered.
So are you willing to make a financial contribution to use bike paths or did you give at the office?
 
I don't have a government statistical source for you but you should be able to use your common sense to accept the validity of the assumption. If you needed to take a package across the city or say to Leduc. Would you use a bicycle or a vehicle? Presumable you'd use a vehicle because you should intuitively know that's it's the more efficient way of doing it. Therefore the GDP generated by using a vehicle is greater than by using a bicycle in virtually all instances other than short distance. And does some leisurely vehicular travel bring down the size of the parameter? Sure, but cyclists use roads too.

What is the source of your public benefit assumption? You're simple substituting the free parking benefit from a homeowner to a cyclist. You can't compare an individual homeowner to the aggregate of cyclists. You need to compare the aggregate number of homeowners to the aggregate number of cyclists if you want to assign value to the free parking. And if wish to assign value to the free parking than you also need to assign value to the cycling path and the benefit cyclists will receive.
Ah... the "common sense fallacy"... I'll flip your argument back: if you need to drop off a package from, say, Winketowin to Whyte ave, which, using "common sense" is probably more frequent, considering that these are two of the densest populated areas of the city, and you use a bike, the net GDP generation is higher than by private vehicle, since all costs are lower: purchasing, operating and maintaining a bike, building and maintaining the infrastructure, not to mention the lower environmental impact and the health benefits to the cyclist, which in turn adds economic benefit for the society as a whole...

And the public benefit assumption goes beyond just the cyclist himself: it has been proven, with actual evidence, I might add, that having dedicated cycling and pedestrian infrastructure lower the risks of accidents, and the severity of the ones that still happen, which is an overall public benefit, just for starters. Also, while the bike lane is a public thoroughfare that can serve several hundred people, having street parking, especially in residential neighborhoods, provides no public good except that to the homeowner who, I'll say again, should be the only person responsible for the costs of having a private, dedicated parking spot at his front door.

Not to mention that you keep treating bike lanes as this leisurely and fringe thing that only serves a radical elite, but ignore the fact that the underusage of bikes as a daily transportation method is also a reflection of how the lack of proper infrastructure makes riding them unsafe in most of the city, therefore forcing people into other modes (usually motorized vehicles). Imagine if the script was flipped, and instead of having 11000km of roads and 100km of bike lanes (and these are not contiguous), we had the exact opposite, now imagine that all of the space dedicated to bikes in this scenario are very narrow lanes that fall into a cliff, making it relatively safe for cyclists, but extremely dangerous and hard to navigate by car, and accidents would often be fatal do drivers. Would people still choose car ownership, or would they start riding bikes more often, and only those with dedicated car lanes would frequently use their cars (while still owning a bike, because they will often need to go to areas without car lanes). This exact what happens to cyclists who want to use bikes as their main mode of transportation. Riding on stroads designed for high speeds, negotiating the road with drivers in their 2-ton suburbitanks who see them as an inconvenience, or breaking the law and sharing the road with pedestrians (and risking getting penalized for injuring one accidentally).
 
Think of the environmental cost of using a bike vs motor vehicle.

I suspect that the likes of Dreeshen and TonCat are 100% in favor of motor vehicles because they involve the consumption of oil and gas, which is the UCP's forte.
 
Let's see how fast we can speedrun through all the Fox News clichés. Cyclists who buy expensive coffee? Maybe blue-haired non-binary baristas next? Shrill gender studies majors?

(By the way, if we're going to use "cyclists buy expensive coffee" as a reason to tax cyclists more—non sequitur though it is—I hope we can create a new tax for anyone who buys a Ford F-150, because that's conspicuous consumption if anything is.)
 

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