asshat politicians in new york (namely Michael DenDekker) is pushing a bill that would require registration for all bicycles. apparently it would be $25 the 1st year, then $5 every year after that. not much, but still, FUCK THAT. i don't know if this would be only in NYC or across the state. i wrote him an email saying "I'm writing to request that your stop pushing your bill for bicycle registration. It seems ridiculous to me to (basically) tax a healthy activity like biking. Not to mention my personal freedom to use my own property. I won't stand for this injustice. Sincerly, Your Constituent, [Name]"
Thats bullshit. Just another way to pull over bicyclists and search them and give tickets. Protest this all the way to the Supreme Court. Politicians wouldnt have jobs if they didnt come up with new laws and regulations.
He's probably pissed off with all the bike lanes in the city street, and feels they should be taxed for road use.
it was pulled like two or three days after this was posted. "stunt legislation" i've heard it called. there aren't very many bike lanes in the streets. that's part of the reason why this law would be ridiculous. we have basically no rights on the road, so fuck if i'm gonna pay a registration fee
Further proof that I've never been to NYC. It is possible to enforce. If they can pass a dog licencing tax, they can pass a tax on anything. It makes me sick just thinking about it.
Fucking tax. They tax you, which basically amounted to robbery and then they tax you for owning thing! Politicians are scum.
I find it hilarious when people complain about every single tax without actually taken into consideration what they go to. This would never work because it'd be too hard to enforce, but let's conveniently ignore the money cities have spent from other taxes to create bike lanes on roads, built bike racks, ect to make biking safer and get more people onto bikes and out of cars.
Why should car owners have to pay to own a car? Christ $5 a year to help maintain bike roads, to make it safe for bicyclists to ride their bike, is completely reasonable. Especially in a place like NYC, you're obviously using your bike to commute on streets and sidewalks there. Christ I'd gladly pay $5 a year if it meant more bike lanes here in New Haven and smooth sidewalks.(even though technically it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk) Despite what people think, your tax dollars don't just go into an incinerate while some guy laughs evilly. They help build infrastructure, like this thing we have: http://www.traillink.com/trail/farmington-canal-heritage-trail-.aspx I can bike the 6 miles to downtown with barely ever having to be on an actual street, if $5 a year helped extend the paved part of the trail all the way up to Hartford, and finish the two miles of it down south to it ends at the coast on Long Wharf instead of the middle of downtown, how is that not fair aside from the argh taxes argument. It's $5, that's two energy drinks, or one beer at a bar.
I would gladly pay $5 dollars a year here too if it meant more bicycle lanes. Taxes aren't bad when they actually go towards something useful and when they go towards something that directly benefits the people paying the tax.
The reason we need bicycle lanes is because most people are lazy car driving bastards and clog up the roads and lanes with their noisy machines. I'm not paying to keep them out of a small part of the road/available space that should rightly be mine anyway, they are.
You know it's kind of like sidewalks, people could just walk in the shoulder of the road, but sidewalks are much preferable to being next to traffic, just like you can ride in the street with cars, i.e. 160lbs of flesh and 20lbs of bike vs 2 tons of mechanical metal, or you know you could pay $5 a year so streets are reconfigured to have safe bike lanes which, I don't know, might get more people out of cars when riding a bike through a city isn't a terrifying experience. Considering it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk and most people on bicycles do not mountain bike, and most people ride road bikes which would be pretty foolish to ride on a surface that isn't pavement, bicycles do need roads. Also someone on a bicycle isn't paying insurance for it, isn't paying for gas, or gas tax, registration, emission testing, ect. Don't pull the depends how rich/poor you are crap, if you don't have $5 a year you don't have a bicycle period, especially since a bike cost substantially more than $5 a year to keep up unless you manage to go years without replacing a tube/tire, ride in the dark with no light, and never grease your chain. *edit* This reminds me of the Simpsons episode where after one bear attack they start the bear patrol and Homer sees "Bear tax" taken out his paycheck and goes "This is an outrage, this is the biggest tax hike in history" and Lisa goes "Actually dad it's the smallest tax hike in history" Literally, this would be the smallest tax increase in history for something that is completely reasonable. Cities all over the place are trying to upgrade their bicycle infrastructure to get more people out of cars, so it's fine, as long as people on bicycles don't have to pay for it.
Or people who drive cars could pay to have bicycle lanes, since they are the reason we apparently need them in the first place. Bicycles do not need tarmac. Why should I pay insurance to ride my bike? I already can't afford to pay for spare parts and repairs. No-one is taxing me for owning a bike, I guarantee that.
Roads were created and built for cars and before that horse and buggies, never bicycles, bicycle lanes are for YOUR protection and convenience otherwise you have to be in the street with cars since a bicycle is a vehicle. Maybe you don't mind riding in the middle of traffic, but most cyclists, especially people who do it every day prefer having the alternative. Yes they do, have you ever tried riding a road bike on dirt, it's not only unsafe it's tedious as hell. You can't even use the mountain bike argument since one most people don't ride those, two they're slower even on pavement, and three they're substantially more expensive which nullifies the whole point of $5 No one is telling you to pay insurance on a bike, you can buy bike insurance if you want but it's pretty useless given the value of most people's bikes. You're being asked to contribute to the infrastructure you use. If you can't afford spare parts for your bike considering how cheap they are and you're not completely destitute, which going by the fancy iphone in your signature pic you're obviously not, you obviously need to take a better look at your finances and readjust them because the problem isn't the world's smallest tax, it's once again the general public not being able to control their spending habits. I mean we could make it totally fair and put in place some king of registration system so people who only ride their bikes on trails and in the hills don't have to pay for the costs of helping to maintain infrastructure for road cyclists, but then the costs of running such a program would mean it would cost a lot more than $5 a year. I mean the amount of money NYC has sunk into making Manhattan and the city as a whole more bicycle friendly is far more than $5 per cyclists, they've spent millions.
A bike tax would only be reasonable if they also reduced a different tax which contributes to roadways and bike routes.
Why. Cities are trying to spend more money to make themselves more bike friendly, so you want them to have less money to do it with. Taxes on cars and gas aren't even enough to cover the infrastructure we already have, let alone trying to improve what we have and build more on top of it. All this would do is in fact make cyclists begin paying for car use because they sure as hell aren't going to let roads go to waste when 96% of people(or probably even more) still commute by car. Seriously people get over your tax cut fetish.
think its has already been said. But if the bike tax would pay for trials and stuff. Im all for it., for One there is a part of the Montour Trail that has not been complete.. All but the section that would connect my area to both parts the Trails to Appalachia.... WTF.. Bring on the tax!!
If they made a bike lane of some sorts that went all along the coast here following Rt. 1 and finished the Farmington Canal trail up the I-91 corridor to Massachusetts I'd even be willing to pay *gasp* $25 a year in bike tax. Actually I'd pay $25 a year just for making the city here more bike friendly, if they actually did the other stuff I'd be willing to go to $50 a year since that would require quite a bit of work.
