Bicycles & The Gas Tax

We’ve all had our close calls. My buddy JoeRay had one this morning.

Returning home on his bike from a training ride, JoeRay said he signaled to make a legal left-hand turn into his neighborhood.

As he moved toward the center line, he was nearly clipped by a car that tried to pass him on the left. The woman driver slammed on brakes and skidded off the road into a ditch, narrowly missing JoeRay.

The woman was shaken but unhurt. Her car was not damaged.

“It’s as close as I’ve ever come to being hit by a car,” JoeRay told me a few minutes after the incident.

Then the fun began.

A motorist in a V-8 pick-up who'd witnessed the incident pulled over and began to berate JoeRay.

“This is your fault,” the motorist told him. “You don’t belong on the road.”

JoeRay found himself simultaneously calming the woman and defending his right to the state's public highways and byways.

“You need to take a look at the law,” JoeRay told the pick-up driver.

The driver responded, “I don’t give a damn about the law. You don’t pay any gas taxes.”

Ah…there we have it. The pick-up driver showed his hand a bit too early in the game.

It’s an argument I’ve heard I thousand times. It boils down to this: Public roads are built using a tax on gasoline. Since bicycles don’t use gasoline, they shouldn’t be using the road.

Is our pick-up driver correct? Well, yes and no. He is correct that bicycles don’t use gasoline. However, bicycle riders pay for a portion of the public roads by other means, mainly property and other taxes.

Consider these numbers from a 2007 study by the Reason Foundation (which, by the way, is pushing a “pay-as-you-go” approach -- also known as toll roads -- in the face of declining gas tax revenues):

* $134 billion is spent each year to construct and operate roads, or $1,199 per U.S. household, representing about one dollar in 37 of median gross household income.

* Highway user fees composed of state and federal fuel taxes, registration and license fees, tolls and other charges levied as a consequence of using public roads, generate $104 billion a year or 77.5 percent of road spending. The remainder (mostly local roads) is financed by sales taxes, property taxes, and general fund appropriations.

* State and federal fuel taxes (on gasoline and diesel) are the largest single highway user fee at $53 billion per year, but they provide less than half of total road funding.

A blogger and cycling advocate named James in South Carolina recently addressed a letter from a Greenville motorist who argued cyclists weren’t paying their fair share, tax-wise. James’ response:

The first and most obvious point to bring up is that most cyclists are also drivers…. We pay the same taxes as other road users, with the exception of a little less in gas tax if we choose to replace some car trips with bicycle trips. For the sake of argument though, let’s look at the situation of a cyclist who does not own a car. That person still pays income, sales, and property taxes that heavily subsidize the construction and maintenance of the federal, state, and county road systems that we all use. Furthermore, the bicycle that he or she rides does not cause the damage to roadways that cars and large trucks do (when is that last time you saw a pothole caused by a bicycle?)….Please stop falsely accusing cyclists of getting a “free ride” on the roads.

Well said, James.

A central point that James makes is that road costs have been shifted to property owners. That’s in line with a May 15 article, “Property Taxes Help Fund Roads As Gas Tax Revenue Dwindles,” about that very trend in Minnesota:

"Dedicated roads funding from state and federal road-user sources such as fuel and vehicle taxes has been relatively stagnant for years. Meanwhile, local property levies for roads and bridges in Minnesota have doubled since the mid-1990s -- to an estimated $1.6 billion in 2006. The result, little noticed by most Minnesotans, is that property taxes have become the state's single largest funder of roads, nearly equal to all state and federal sources combined."

JoeRay’s run-in with the pick-up driver came on a day when the Raleigh News & Observer ran an article about a growing shortcoming with the gas tax.

Here are a few quotes from that article:

“North Carolinians are driving more miles every year, but they're buying less gas. Although better fuel economy sounds great for the pocketbook and good for the planet, it spells trouble for our long-term reliance on gas-tax money to finance transit and highway needs. After spending more than it takes in for several years, the federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to run out of money for road projects by 2009.”

“In the old days, when cars got 13 or 14 miles to a gallon, we were pretty flush with cash," said David J. Forkenbrock of the University of Iowa Public Policy Center. "But we’re already seeing major drops in the revenues coming in. We know it's going to get worse.”

One possible solution, according to the gas tax article: charge by the mile, not the gallon. Forkenbrock is overseeing a two-year, $16.5 million study in North Carolina and five other states on the feasibility of replacing the fuel tax with a mileage fee.

According to the article, volunteers’ cars will be rigged with computers and satellite gear to record where and how far they drive. “Each month, the volunteers will receive sample bills for how many miles they have driven. Their mileage fees will be compared to the per-gallon taxes they pay now,” the article states.

Researchers will also look at whether to vary the mileage fee according to the kind of vehicle driven and the time of day it’s operated. For instance:

* Heavy trucks could be charged a higher fee “to reflect their share of pavement wear and tear.”

* To relieve freeway congestion, a rush-hour premium could be charged.

* Lower fees might be charged for alternative-fuel and low-emission cars.

Well, now, there’s a plan I can get behind. As I cyclist, I’d welcome the opportunity to pay a true “road use” fee. Simply put, the more you use the road, the more you pay. The heavier your vehicle, the more you pay. Want to get a break on those user fees? Get an alternative-fuel or low-emission vehicle.

Bottom line under such a scheme: Bicycles would come out a big winner.

With the study results at least two years down the road, I’ve got a little advice for the guy in that pick-up truck, the guy who lectured my buddy JoeRay.

Next time you see someone in a fuel-efficient Prius, pull ‘em over and give ‘em a lecture: Don’t they know they’re not pulling their weight on the gas tax?