At a City Council/Legislative delegation round table…
But at least the legislators are asking skeptical questions about the Columbia River Crossing.
At a City Council/Legislative delegation round table…
But at least the legislators are asking skeptical questions about the Columbia River Crossing.
0 responses to “Maintenance Backlog Questions, but No Answers”
From the article:
[Re: CRC] “Adams said he had been assured the funding would not be deducted from other projects”
What? Adams will be mayor, (and transportation commissioner,) this is HIS problem to deal with. If he wants to make sure that funding won’t be deducted from other projects, HE should make sure that it doesn’t happen. But when he is looking for a handout for $700M from the legislature for maintenance, he should pretty much assume that he is going to compete against other projects, (like a $4.2B project on the edge of town.)
Part of the solution is a bicycle tax, bicycle tax, bicycle tax where bicyclists directly pay their own way instead of the money to pay for bicycle infrastructure being poached from roadway and street maintenance funds. Part of the problem with having this take place is the conflict of interests with people like Mayor elect Sam Adams and State Representative Jackie Dingfelder who are both avid bicyclists, do not themselves want to pay the taxes for the infrastructure they use, and who both have collective social engineering agendas that have actually fostered the lack of street maintenance funding while increasing traffic congestion.
Likewise with transit since TriMet’s two axle busses do some of the heaviest damage to the roadways (source Sam Adams Office). As part of the solution, a portion of transit fares must also be dedicated to street maintenance on the roadways used by transit vehicles. The problem here too is that of collective social agendas including those at Metro continually aim to deliver huge subsidies to transit rather than requiring farebox revenues that better reflect the costs of providing the service.
Moreover, as there is more diversity in transport travel and mode, motorists can no longer to continue to be the all inclusive cash cows to fund both roadways and subsidize alternative modes of transport. The users of all modes of transport must financially contribute to roadway funding and maintenance.
Terry, let us know what the specifics of your bike tax are.
Which bicyclists do you tax (i.e. Oregon bicyclists, everyone biking on Oregon roads (including those pesky Clark County Commuters), adults, kids, mountain bikers who don’t use the roads, et.)? What’s the fee? How do you collect it? and What’s the total revenue?
Thanks!
If being a bicyclist is a conflict of interest for officials involved in transportation policy, then wouldn’t being a car driver also be a conflict of interest?
But for one of the first times ever, I agree with Terry on one small point… We do need a better solution for the problem of busses and the damage they cause. I don’t however agree with his recommended solution – but I do agree it is a tough problem to solve… Three axle busses? Better pavement? More rail and less rubber?
The last time we went around and around about bicycles and their “freeloading”, we learned that 1.6% of the City road budget was spent on bicycle improvements. Oddly enough, Terry wants to create an entirely new bureaucracy to administer the thousands of bicycles in town in order to, what, fill a gaping hole in the budget?
And, remember that Oregon state law requires that 1% of improvements be spent on bicycles & pedestrians, or the road funds are lost entirely. Where’s the beef, Terry?
What I can’t believe is that after literally years of his crtl-c crtl-v commentary, people still expect from Terry:
a) logical consistency
b) any kind of specific proposal
Some enterprising sociology student should mine the comments here, and see what percent of Terry’s posts use the phrase “bicycle tax,” and what percent of his posts offer any specific ideas on how to administer such a program and what the net revenues are expected to be. My prediction is the answer would be 99.7% and 0%, respectively.
“Better pavement? More rail and less rubber?”
Rail of course prevents road damage. Better pavement though, to prevent such severe damage from buses is hard to come by. You’re looking at road costs that would easily exceed that of rail over a short time cycle.
As for the bicycle taxing, I think that is kind of dumb, but I’ll bite – how do you add taxes to cyclists? Maybe setup some cyclist tolls on the Hawthorne, Burnside, and Steel, and any other bridge they might cross?
If your worried about people paying their fair share of fare and costs, then why don’t you ever attack the fact that the expenditures on roadways are commonly extracted form the general budget and from fees not collected from usage and instead placed on the shoulders of income tax payers? The majority of that amount, which is a HUGE amount, has 97% of that cost burden put on only 50% of the population.
So what about those people paying their fair share of road costs? I’m all for people paying their fair share but going after cyclists is such a distraction from the real issues of transit, road, and auto users not being appropriately charged for their actual road usage.
If not another car ever road on another bridge or road again, cyclists could use them for another thousand years without a penny. So really, the costs aren’t even a serious concern. If every penny spent on “bike infrastructure” was spent on roadways it would buy barely a mile or two of single lane road.
…but I digress… any ideas Terry on equaling out this massive redistribution of costs onto specific parts of the population?
Unless Terry uses a Mac, then it would “cmd-c cmd-v” commentary.
I personally think that Terry’s style of reusing the same argument over and over everywhere is the only thing damaging his credibility.
Terry’s points are actually legitimate and when discussed appropriatly carry real weight. It is the delivery which is so damaging.
The reality is that there is no easy solution which cut-and-paste commentary can provide.
We do need transportation equity, and funding equity. But we never get to real meaty and helpful discussion before it devolves into ideological rants.
It is my understanding that the cost of administering any sort of bicycle licensing fee would use up almost 100% of the revenue.
What could we do then? How about a voluntary donation box on state tax forms that would donate money into a bicycle infrastructure fund? Or how about a half a percent sales tax on bicycles and gear? Maybe the city could sell some cool Portland bike swag and use the profits? I don’t know, but there are options other than tired old rants.
It is my opinion that Cars have had so much funding for the last 100 years that I don’t mind having some go to alternatives now. But I respect differing opinions, and understand their concerns.
Terry: Given that bicyclists are contributing in part to the 8 billion in general fund dollars (which *every tax payer* contributes to) that are getting shifted to the Highway Trust Fund, don’t you think they’re paying their fair share?
“The Senate has tried several times this year, and as recently as Monday, to funnel money into the fund, only to be blocked by Republicans who wanted to offer amendments or who objected to transferring $8 billion from the Treasury’s general fund into the trust fund, which is made up of money coming from the federal gasoline tax….”
Rather than debate how to tax bicyclist, lets debate why to tax bicyclists. Keep in mind that there are many deliberate acts in this country made to make car driving easier by spreading the costs around, and so once you look at those subsidies per vehicle or trip, really, instead of taxing bicyclists, we may decide that it would be cheaper to give money to bicyclists, under the hope that more people will do it…
I’ll give you one example: One of Bin Laden’s stated goals is to bankrupt the US. By renting a truck, and filling it full of fertilizer, he almost blew up the world trade, (we are talking about 1993, not 2001.) The truck and the fertilizer were the cheap parts of the plan, one of the people actually boasted the spent more money on long distance telephone calls than on the bomb itself. Bin Laden is part of the Saudi Royal family, he get his money from oil: When the price of oil is high, he has more money to spend on this sort of thing, and we spend hundred of thousands times more money on against it… (And: That money comes from the general fund, or from airline ticket fees, or from whatever, but it doesn’t come from gas taxes.) So if we use more oil, the price of oil goes up, and Bin Laden has more money, and so we spend more money protecting ourselves from him. Conversely, if we use less oil, oil prices will go down, Bin Laden will have less money, and we won’t have to worry about him as much…
How much money are we talking? Well, just the war on terror is going to run around $1700/person this year, (so we’re just talking about the overseas part of the costs, so no homeland security or anything in that number,) and given that the other side would be so broke that they couldn’t even afford rocks if it wasn’t for the large amount of oil they sell us, pretty much all of those costs should be blamed on the marginal oil demand, or people driving when they could easily bicycle/walk/take public transit. Compared to the $200/year that the average driver pays in gas taxes, (or about 1.5 cents/mile,) we’re looking at the marginal drivers costing us around 14 cents/mile… So if you gave cyclists 10 cents/mile of that, you’d still have 4 cents/mile for specialized infrastructure and administration, and the middle east could go back to being the desert it has been since they over-irrigated and salted up their fields…
Adron wrote: Rail of course prevents road damage. Better pavement though, to prevent such severe damage from buses is hard to come by. You’re looking at road costs that would easily exceed that of rail over a short time cycle.
How exactly does “rail…prevents road damage”? Simply because you’re not using the road? Is the argument to replace asphalt with rails to eliminate the maintenance budget – if so, are you suggesting that rail does not require maintenance? Rail infrastructure requires CONSTANT maintenance.
And, I have photographs of examples of where rail-based transport caused damage to roads.
As for a roadway surface that is less damaging, it certainly does exist. It’s called concrete. Asphalt is a poor product for use on heavy-use streets. If you dig up Capitol Highway, you’ll find concrete. I-5 has concrete. Highway 99W, between Monroe and Junction City, is concrete – the 1930s era concrete, with no asphalt overlay. Even PDOT knows this; Marine Drive (west of Portland Highway) is concrete because of the heavy truck traffic. Most of the runways/taxiways at PDX have concrete underneath the asphalt.
If we built MAX to the same cheap standards as an asphalt street, it would be laid with 39′ lengths of 75 pound rail on wood ties. If anyone wants to see what this rail looks like without maintenance, take a look at the Portland & Western’s Westside District along Tualatin or Hermann Roads in Tualatin, or between Newberg and Dundee. These tracks once supported electric interurban trains at 55 MPH and today trains walk along at 10 MPH.
John Reinhold wrote: It is my understanding that the cost of administering any sort of bicycle licensing fee would use up almost 100% of the revenue.
Such an argument only works if one likewise advocates for the elimination of the DMV – most tax revenue used to fund highways passes through the Department of Revenue (gas taxes) anyways (only 11% of ODOT’s budget comes from DMV revenues).
The Oregon DMV’s budget is $148 million. If DMV costs $148M and brings in $568M, DMV apparently does a good job as a revenue collector among its tasks to regulate drivers.
I find no reason why a similar agency to regulate bicyclists/bicycles would somehow fail to bring in sufficient revenue, unless the operating costs are kept high and the taxes kept low. Using existing DMV offices, or Portlands Bureau of Revenue would require little additional cost to operate such a system yet would provide the ability to collect fees that would be used to further fund, build, maintain and operate the city’s (or county’s, or state’s) bicycle network.
Highway 99W, between Monroe and Junction City, is concrete – the 1930s era concrete, with no asphalt overlay.
Point taken, but I believe this got resurfaced a few years ago when the 99E/99W interchange was realigned, and it wasn’t exactly a pleasure to drive on prior to that.
You described the problem perfectly. How much could we charge for a bicycle license, or registration? How many people could we license or register?
Given the benefits of increased bicycle use…fewer cars, cleaner air and water, lower greenhouse gas emissions, better health, less road wear, more fun…we should be paying bicyclists, not taxing them.
I have in the past been very specific and suggested starting point for a bicycle tax. The concept would issue a bike license to each bicyclist at the same fee per year as the cost of a car license. The price tag would be permanently tied to the price of a car license so the bike license fee could vary depending if the price of a car license is changed. The bicycle license would have large numbers on it, a picture of the bicyclist and would be required to be displayed on the handle bars of any bicycle used on the street. Bicyclists would be responsible for purchasing a license holder. Bicyclists ignoring traffic laws would then be subject to better identification and more easily cited. The difference between a car license and this type of bike license program is that the bike license would be issued to the bicyclist and could be transferred from bike to bike thereby not requiring a individual with more than one bicycle to license each one saving that person money. Minors under the age of 18 years would either be exempt from the fee or the fee would be considerably less covering only the administrative costs. Rental bike companies would be required to license each bike and occasional out of state riders would be required to purchase a trip permit. Unless Clark County set up their own program of licensing bicyclists, then Clark County bicyclists who routinely crossed the river or commuted across the Columbia by bicycle would also be required to have a license. No huge new government bureaucracy would be needed. Just like the proposed Street Maintenance Fee, the additional responsibility could be simply added to an existing government agency or contracted out, possibly even to the DMV, to keep the administrative costs at a minimum. The money raised would go to pay for bicycle infrastructure. The money now poached for bicycle infrastructure would be returned to the street maintenance and roadway funding budgets.
Doug said “Given that bicyclists are contributing in part to the 8 billion in general fund dollars (which *every tax payer* contributes to) that are getting shifted to the Highway Trust Fund, don’t you think they’re paying their fair share?
Motorists too are included in the “every taxpayer” argument contributing to the general fund at all levels of government. Therefore, if a person buys into Doug’s argument, all motorist specific paid taxes, including gasoline and fuel taxes, ought to be eliminated with all roadway funding coming only from the general fund, and at all levels of government thereby eliminating the double standard where motorists pay twice. Furthermore, approximately 20 percent of the taxes motorists pay into the Federal Highway Trust Fund is siphoned off for purposes other than roadways such as transit and bicycle infrastructure, and even transit oriented land development. Therefore the 8 billion dollars from the general fund is only a partial pay back to motorists. So to answer Doug’s question if bicyclists are paying their fair share the answer is NO! Bicyclists are freeloaders subsidized by motorists.
As for rails in the streets, consider the financial costs of putting them there and who pays for it. It is not the rail passengers through the farebox. Consider the eco effects of making the steel for the rail and the eco effects from the dust and dirt in the air when the streets are dug up and construction occurs. Consider the amount of energy used to make the rails, dig up the streets and put them in place. Once the rails are in place, the streetcars that operate on them do not even pay their own way. Motorist paid parking meter revenues heavily subsidize streetcar operations while the majority of passengers ride for free. Sustainability starts with financial self-sustainability. Placing rails in the street is not sustainability. Doing so is just increasing the ongoing financial burden being placed on taxpayers so promoters deprived of their own toys can have a full sized Lionel Train set to play with at taxpayer expense.
we should be paying bicyclists, not taxing them.
Well they had the nice little “yellow” share a bike program.
That went over well.
Well they had the nice little “yellow” share a bike program. That went over well.
The Yellow Bike Project was entirely a volunteer effort, not a city project, and evolved into the Community Cycling Center, which gives away hundreds of bikes each year.
Some people seem to focus only on the fact that the yellow bikes were frequently stolen… the originators of the idea were aware of this and adapted their project to that reality.
It doesn’t matter who sponsored it Bob!
Actually I thought it was a great idea, but THIS IS PORTLAND, NOT EUROPE, no matter how hard people wish that this were EUROPE, it aint gonna happen!
And BOB! It would be nice if you would attend this with me an Adron:
http://www.adronbhall.com/blogs/my_transportation_obsession/post/2008/09/24/Transit-Beer-2.aspx
How bout you MR Smith?
Why don’t you show up too!
You might even have a good time!
TRANSIT HOBBYISTS, come out from behind your keyboards!
I see Christian from TRIMETETIQUETTE IS COMING!
As I said, how about, instead of taxing bicyclist, we give them money so that more people will do it:
“That event will be followed by a series of “targeted bike light education and enforcement actions” by the Police Bureau. The actions are slated to begin next week and the plan is for police officers to educate non-lit cyclists about light laws, pass out safety information, and install free lights (thanks to an ODOT grant) when necessary.”
http://bikeportland.org/2008/09/25/bta-police-bureau-launch-latest-incarnation-of-bike-light-education-program/
Free lights sounds almost as good as money…
This just outrages me!
Part of the solution is a bicycle tax, bicycle tax, bicycle tax where bicyclists directly pay their own way instead of the money to pay for bicycle infrastructure being poached from roadway and street maintenance funds. Part of the problem with having this take place is the conflict of interests with people like Mayor elect Sam Adams and State Representative Jackie Dingfelder who are both avid bicyclists, do not themselves want to pay the taxes for the infrastructure they use, and who both have collective social engineering agendas that have actually fostered the lack of street maintenance funding while increasing traffic congestion.
Likewise with transit since TriMet’s two axle busses do some of the heaviest damage to the roadways (source Sam Adams Office). As part of the solution, a portion of transit fares must also be dedicated to street maintenance on the roadways used by transit vehicles. The problem here too is that of collective social agendas including those at Metro continually aim to deliver huge subsidies to transit rather than requiring farebox revenues that better reflect the costs of providing the service.
Moreover, as there is more diversity in transport travel and mode, motorists can no longer to continue to be the all inclusive cash cows to fund both roadways and subsidize alternative modes of transport. The users of all modes of transport must financially contribute to roadway funding and maintenance.
THIS IS PORTLAND, NOT EUROPE, no matter how hard people wish that this were EUROPE, it aint gonna happen!
Lenny Anderson wrote: Given the benefits of increased bicycle use…fewer cars, cleaner air and water, lower greenhouse gas emissions, better health, less road wear, more fun…we should be paying bicyclists, not taxing them.
And I should get a HUGE check for what I do, and the lack of investment I receive.
Let’s see. I get very little benefit from MAX, so I should get a check for that. Nor do I get any benefit from the vast subsidies given to SoWa and the Pearl and the Streetcar – so I ought to get huge checks for that.
I don’t have any city provided sidewalks, so I should get a check for that. My street has no on-street parking, and was built in 1930-something. It hasn’t been re-paved in years. So I deserve a check for that.
My family only owns one car, a car that has a four-cylinder engine and typically has a minimum of two people in it (including my son), so I should get a check for owning less than two cars per household.
I own a bike, so check, please.
I don’t own my home so I’m not contributing to the mortgage meltdown. I should get a check for that, too.
My criminal record consists of one $10 parking ticket incurred in 1995 and one $20 speeding ticket incurred in 2002. I am the victim of one crime, a driver who made an illegal left turn in front of me and who paid a $260 fine after pleading guilty plus my legal fees and damages. So I should get a refund for not needing the court system or the correctional system.
I’ve never had a house fire so I should get a refund for not needing fire department assistance.
I don’t park at the Barbur Boulevard P&R (or any of the other TriMet subsidized parking lots) and my bus stop lacks a shelter, so I should get a check for that. My morning bus is ALWAYS a 1700/1800 which is fully depreciated, so I shouldn’t have to pay full bus fare inbound; outbound a portion of my trip is always a 1400/1700/1800 and a portion is on a newer bus so I should get a fare break for that too.
And finally, since Mr. Anderson feels that bicyclists should get a check because it’s “more fun”, I hope that Mr. Anderson will help defray the cost of my vacation to Southern California, where I will be having “more fun”. And I’ll even get to take my son on a commuter train (Metrolink) and subway (Metro Red Line) ride – two things I’ll never get to do in Portland. I might even take a ride on the Orange Line (BRT). (I’ve already ridden Metro, and OCTA, busses.) So feel free to write me that big check.
As As long as bicyclists want everything associated with bicycling to be socialistically handed to them free of charge on a silver platter, here are a couple of my own additions to Erik’s list where society can pay me:
I live near a golf course, but have not played in several years. Playing golf is both healthy and fun so the taxpayers can write me a healthy check for playing golf instead of me paying the fee to use the course.
I do not own a clothes dryer and drip dry my wash loads. So every household that owns a clothes dryer needs to be charged an extra 20 percent surcharge on their electricity or gas bill for the unnecessary use of energy so people like myself who drip dry can have a 20 percent subsidy to reduce our power bills for being more eco friendly by not having clothes dryers.
With statements like: “instead of taxing bicyclists, we give them money so that more people will do it”. It is obvious most bicyclists have yet to grow up expecting the taxpayers to be mommy and daddy to them when it comes to accepting financial responsibility for the specialized bicycle infrastructure they use and want.
Terry,
Here’s what I want you to do ok!
Get in front of your video cam, and RANT RANT RANT, about all these issues, stick it on YOU TUBE, and post it here.
I WANT TO SEE YOU RANT BROTHER!
And oh yes – Besides using energy to dry clothes, about all gas or electric clothes dryers do is vent hot air so the 20 percent surcharge on utility bills can be a considered a global warming tax and possibly can be collectively controlled by requiring owners to purchase cap and trade certificates too.
Al – Somehow you are missing the fact that bicyclists are the ones that are continually “ranting” by attempting to force people out of their cars while using rhetoric, stacked deck citizen committees and back room socialistic politics to have taxpayers (rather than themselves) pay for their lifestyles and one-sided agenda.
Terry-
I happen to agree with you, (in principle at least)
but I still would like to see you do these rants LIVE, IN PERSON!
You can even put on a stupid hat just to show em that you ARE SERIOUS!
The bicycle threat is the least of our problems however, imo.
Plenty of threats going on around us,
I don’t particularly care about too much about the
“DREADED BICYCLE THREAT”
at least not until we solve some of the other more pressing threats!
RANT ON BROTHER, RANT ON!
I mean, you rants might even surpass my rants on the
+RANT SCALE+
And that would be quite an accomplishment indeed!
Signed,
Al M, ‘Sacred Brotherhood of Ranter’s’
[apologize now for my grammatical and spelling errors, that’s why I prefer VIDEO]