Comments on: You Don’t Have To Be A Genius To Know Bike Registration Is Dumb

By: Jerome Kemick

Jerome Kemick — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:23:26 +0000

Bike Registry should be FREE, like the Internet!!
http://www.BikeRegistry is Free.
And it works!

By: Motorized Bicycles

Motorized Bicycles — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:11:57 +0000

"Personally, I think that somebody must have been bullied as a child, and had his bike taken away from him. Someone should buy him a shiny new bike and take him for a ride. If he can’t handle the pedaling, let’s get him a bike motor. Once he feels the wind in his hair again, he’ll probably change his mind." Should cyclists have to pay to register their bicycles? Wayne Krieger says they need to “start contributing.”

By: CBrinkman

CBrinkman — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:46:09 +0000

The Oregon politician is just pandering I assume – but the Freakonomics post is very disappointing because their reason for existence is to think things through from an economics point of view. They totally failed to do that in that throw away little post. I’d like to see them really delve into this one and determine that yes, everyone should pay their fair share and that cyclists and pedestrians have been subsidizing drivers lo these many years.

By: Charles Siegel

Charles Siegel — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:04:12 +0000

Local streets are paid for out of a city’s general funds, mostly paid for by property taxes, sales taxes, etc. Bicyclists pay as much as drivers to maintain the streets, but we have much less use of the streets. The typical street is two traffic lanes used by bikes and cars plus two parking lanes used exclusively by cars: from that fact alone, drivers use twice as much of the street space that we all pay for.

In addition, bicycling benefits society as a whole by reducing congestion, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Transit riders are subsidized $3 or more for each trip they take, because of the environmental benefits of transit. Bicycles have even greater environmental benefits than transit and get virtually no funding. If we spent 10% as much to subsidize each bicyclist as we now spend to subsidize each transit rider, we would have more than enough for bicycle infrastructure.

By: Pat

Pat — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:35:51 +0000

If you try real hard you can extract one good thing from all this. The fact that cyclists seem to be angering stupid people more and more could be an indicator of cycling’s increasing popularity. As this continues, there will be a stronger political movement to push policy farther away from utter horse sh*t like this. I also like all the comments on the blog extending the logic to charging people for walking.

Really, Wayne Krieger just wants to help cyclists right? I expect soon he will propose a discounted housing for cyclists too, which is so nice of him. It will have to be consolidated into one area obviously. And since a lot of drivers are angry at cyclists, the housing section would need barbed wire fences for cyclists protection. Snipers too, for our protection of course. Also we would need to carry our registration cards with us wherever we went, just to make sure we are contributing to the wear we put on roads. Since it is probably dangerous to ride at night, cyclists would have need to have a curfew as well. Really, we could just outsource some forms of employment to the Cyclist’s Quarter to make the trip to work shorter and convenient. Since they never need to leave, we could put a big lock on the exits and never have to worry about it again. This could all be done on $27 a year I am sure!

By: jim

jim — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:53:14 +0000

TJ,For your info the car registration fee will be trippled here soon.So the cost for bikes will be 1/3 of the cost of a car and the damage is not caused by bikes it is caused by the weather bike lanes need to be repainted, cleaned and maintaned.Cyclists should pay to keep up the bike lanes

By: jim

jim — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:36:05 +0000

Nobody said cyclist don’t pay for roads we just want them to help pay for bike lanes.also they should have a licence plate. That would help with theft and accountability.here in oregon we are asking cyclists to pay $27.00 per year for there cause. Is that to much to pay to benefit your cause?The money would help to pay for bike lanes and other bike related things.Why is it that cyclists are not willing to help there own cause?

By: Jef Poskanzer

Jef Poskanzer — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:29:23 +0000

I don’t care about the registration part, but for the fee to be fair it should actually be negative. We should *get paid for biking*, because we save society money via avoided road-building costs, avoided congestion, etc.

By: Thanos

Thanos — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:30:07 +0000

Man, just pony up the bucks. Ain’t no free ride here.

By: torridjoe

torridjoe — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:27:59 +0000

Nice to see you covering this! I went over some of the many reasons Rep. Krieger is off his Krocker, over at the progressive community site Loaded Orygun. Check it out.

By: marcos

marcos — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:09:08 +0000

Someone rush this man to one of Obama’s scientific reeducation camps where he can learn the laws of physics!

-marc

By: Clarence Eckerson Jr.

Clarence Eckerson Jr. — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:05:39 +0000

When do we start registering feet? I mean sidewalks cost alot of money…

By: John Murphy

John Murphy — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:58:27 +0000

The worst part of the Freakonomics post is the kicker: “Considering the enormous benefits of investments in bicycle infrastructure, can even a tax-hating bicyclist concede his point, at a registration cost of just over 7 cents a day?”

I’d still be getting ripped off if all that money went to cycling infrastructure. More likely the entire amount is eaten up administering the program, and even if the remnants went to cycling infrastructure, it would probably just give the state the opportunity to take away current funding, resulting in no net gain.