[*BCM*] (no subject)

[Greg Howard]

> I expect that cars put way more wear and tear on roads than cyclists do.

I think you can do more than "expect"!  The general rule in
transportation planning is that road damage is roughly proportional to
the fourth power of axle weight.  This actually lets most drivers off
the hook, since a compact car is pretty miniscule compared to a large
SUV or delivery truck.

A few figures, for reference: a 200 lb bike (with rider) does roughly
1/33000th as much road wear as a 2700 lb Honda Civic Hybrid.  But the
Civic, in turn, does about 1/30th as much damage as a 6,400 lb H2.
(Even the H2 pales by comparison to very large trucks.)

Figures like these were the basis for an
infamous-among-San-Francisco-bikers letter to the editor by John
Holtzclaw of the Sierra Club in response to a proposal to charge bikes
a toll across the Golden Gate Bridge.  I'm including the letter, which
was never published, below.  If a similar situation comes up here, I
recommend borrowing John's sarcasm; I'm sure he won't mind.


greg



21 February 1998

San Francisco Chronicle
Fax 777-1896

Stan Smith's proposal to charge bikers for using the Golden Gate
Bridge deserves careful consideration.

Any such charge should be based upon the damage caused by the
bikes relative to the $3 round-trip auto charge. According to
the Highway Design Manual road damage is proportional to the
fourth power of the axle weight. Compared to a 4000 lb auto
(too light for a Suburban Assault Vehicle, of course), a 200 lb
biker should be charged $0.00002 per round trip, 0.002 cents per
round trip.

Of course, this calculation ignores such collateral auto damage
as air pollution and its health costs, congestion (twice daily
critical auto masses), local road construction and maintenance
costs, the costs of bombing Iraq's palaces and children to keep
the oil flowing, etc.

The Bridge District could collect by selling 1 cent toll cards
good for 500 round trips. The toll collectors would punch the
cards. Or, better yet, the Bridge District could install
BART-type fare card dispensers and toll gates. Or even higher
tech transponders could be automatically read as the biker
passes by.

Stan Smith has a real cash-cow by the tail here.

John Holtzclaw





On 8/29/06, Rachel Elizabeth Dillon <red at mit.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 10:06:20AM -0400, Lee Peters wrote:
> > Did anyone hear the interview with the Mass Bike commander in chief on WBUR?
>
> No, do you have a link or a summary?
>
> > Or read this?
> > http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2006/08/26/bicyclists_scourge_of_the_roads/
>
> The tone he chooses isn't going to convince any cyclists, even those who
> might be sympathetic to his ideas. I think that drivers get upset that
> they have to pay a whole lot of money just in order to use the roads and
> own their cars, let alone actually paying for gas. And there are a lot of
> additional taxes levied on drivers in order to pay for the upkeep of roads.
> I expect that cars put way more wear and tear on roads than cyclists do.
> The idea of putting some money into the infrastructure that you use makes
> sense, but I always figured that the existing state and local taxes that
> one pays cover that small amount of wear and tear on the roads. I mean,
> pedestrians don't have to pay a sidewalk tax...
>
> > If they begin charging excise tax to bikers for the roads, we can really get militant.
>
> I would certainly be terribly upset about this unless we got something
> very, very nice in return.
>
> > On last week's ride, we made an illegal left turn at Beacon and Harvard.  A pedestrian admonished us for ruining it for all bikers.  Is that statement a gross acknowledgement of stereotyping?
>
> People stereotype --- we make judgements about others based on our
> existing knowledge. This isn't pretty, but I don't have enough room in
> my head for six billion other people as detailed individuals --- I don't
> even have room for the few thousand I might pass by in a given day. On
> the road, you also have to make snap judgements about safety, and I do
> this based on stereotyping --- I'm more nervous around different types
> of cars, I behave more cautiously around some pedestrians than others, &c.
>
> I'm sure drivers do the same thing --- and, on the rare occasions that
> I have to drive in the city, I do too. I expect bikers who look one way
> to run red lights, I expect bikers who look another way to veer wildly
> into the road, whatever. I can imagine that, if you hadn't been on the
> other side of the equation, you might see biker after biker doing things
> you thought where dangerous, asinine, or just irritating, and end up
> feeling like they all did that, even though they don't. You notice the
> things that bother you more.
>
> Interestingly, when I'm driving, I don't really care about bikers running
> red lights --- more power to them. When I'm walking, though, I get upset
> when people blow through red lights in front of me, or won't stop at
> crosswalks. I actually yelled at one guy recently for blasting through
> a red light and almost hitting me --- at night, no lights, &c. Someone
> very dear to me actually got _hit_ in a crosswalk a couple of months
> ago, and while I may not be proud of this attitude, I am damn certain
> that the words "embarassment to all cyclists" would have come out of my
> mouth had I been there. (...Among others.)
>
> I don't think there's an easy answer to this conflict, but I do think that
> one biker or especially Critical Mass which, while we all know it doesn't
> represent any one person's attitude and is a thing all its own, blah
> blah blah, is in the minds of a lot of people a or even the biker voice.
> And so while this person's comment doesn't seem very productive, I can see
> where it might come from.
>
> OK, I'll stop now. :)
>
> -r.
>
>
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