Crazy bicyle riders costing us more money (real estate, suburbs)

[homiej]

Originally Posted by Dr.drew

As long as a community is building biking trails or places to walk, I don't think they all need to connect to other trails right away. That would be nice for someone who wants to go for a long bike ride. I think some bike trails need to be directed from residential areas to commercial areas for people.

I would also like to see some city streets become more bicycle friendly. There will always be main roads that will be not good for bicyclists because of traffic, but if those have sidewalks, people could still walk along them. If it is a main drag with all the businesses on it and all the traffic, maybe a parallel street a block or 2 away could be designated as a biking street. Bikers could bike along the biking street.

Well, most neighborhoods don't follow the grid pattern anymore and they're rarely connected well. If we went back to the grid pattern, one could easily set forth long-block alleyways for bikers/pedestrians.

[Dr.drew]

Originally Posted by homiej

Well, most neighborhoods don't follow the grid pattern anymore and they're rarely connected well. If we went back to the grid pattern, one could easily set forth long-block alleyways for bikers/pedestrians.

There doesn't necessarily have to be a grid pattern. If there are main streets that hold most of the cars, bicycles could get where they are going by going on the back streets.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by Dr.drew

There doesn't necessarily have to be a grid pattern. If there are main streets that hold most of the cars, bicycles could get where they are going by going on the back streets.

Not necessarily, but it helps to have a grid pattern.

[Dr.drew]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

Not necessarily, but it helps to have a grid pattern.

I prefer them also. Excessively winding streets cause wasted space

[homiej]

Originally Posted by Dr.drew

I prefer them also. Excessively winding streets cause wasted space

Also, navigating modern day suburbia is extremely difficult due to the lack of uniformity in street naming/directional patterns, both on bike and car.

[xandrex]

Originally Posted by golfgal

Obviously you are not feeding 3 teenagers and bringing home 12 bags of groceries .

It would be easy to tax bike riders---simply require them to register their bikes. We all had to do that as kids. We had a sticker with a number on it, paid a couple bucks to the city. If you wanted to increase revenue to pay for bike lanes, etc. the city then institutes a bike tax at $20/bike or whatever.

If the city wanted to institute a bike tax, I'd have no problem with it, assuming it wasn't terribly expensive.

However, there is a problem with this. Bikes, unlike cars, aren't registered to an owner. So if a bike is found without registration, there's no way to identify whose it is (by running the equivalent of a VIN or otherwise) and who should pay the penalty.

This also causes a problem with how to institute such a tax. Most communities don't have any tax on bikes. But let's say that Minneapolis institutes a $20 bike tax. Does this mean that people from the suburbs need to register their bikes if they want to ride in the city? Who would want to pay if they were just taking a casual ride into the city for whatever reason? Conversely, taxing only people with bikes who live in the city wouldn't necessarily be fair (as there would be plenty of suburbanites who use the trails more than some Minneapolitans). Even if they did only charge Minneapolitans, how hard would it be to get around the system? If I didn't register my bike, I could be stopped and have a cop ask for my ID. But my ID doesn't list me as a resident of the city as my driver's license is still registered to my family's address near Duluth. Would I be able to use that loophole (despite actually sort of living in the city permanently as a student) to get around paying the tax and the potential fine?

Even if extra revenue were necessary and all of the above questions could be answered, I would doubt that we'd see such a tax pop up. The city is trying to encourage biking by touting the health, congestion, and cost benefits. While even a small tax on bikes wouldn't be much, it would be that much more of a disincentive to ride. The city clearly doesn't want that.

[Thegonagle]

There was a statewide bicycle registration program, until Ventura eliminated it. One problem was the fees collected, IIRC less than $10 per bike every two years, weren't enough to pay for anything beyond administering the program itself. The prevailing logic at the time was "why bother?"

On the one hand, I disagreed when the program was eliminated because I thought it was a useful tool for law enforcement to reunite owners with their stolen property from across jurisdiction lines (assuming the owner bothered to register the bike.)

On the other hand, I didn't miss it, because I personally never bothered to register my own bikes.

As we know, recreating a registration program today will cost a lot more than building upon the old one ever would.

[2nd trick op]

Originally Posted by Dr.drew

More people should put the cars in the garage for a while and ride bikes around. It would be good in more ways than one

Just one question --- Are you one of the Very Politically Correct who would like to get your hands on more of the machinery of government in order to force the rest of us to do it?

If not, you have every right to your opinion, and to promote it in any way compatible with a level playing field.

If so, you are a part of the biggest problem.

It really is that simple.

[Dr.drew]

Originally Posted by 2nd trick op

Just one question --- Are you one of the Very Politically Correct who would like to get your hands on more of the machinery of government in order to force the rest of us to do it?

If not, you have every right to your opinion, and to promote it in any way compatible with a level playing field.

If so, you are a part of the biggest problem.

It really is that simple.

I don't think the government should force anybody to do or not do anything. This is one of those things that the people should do.

[xandrex]

Originally Posted by 2nd trick op

Just one question --- Are you one of the Very Politically Correct who would like to get your hands on more of the machinery of government in order to force the rest of us to do it?

If not, you have every right to your opinion, and to promote it in any way compatible with a level playing field.

If so, you are a part of the biggest problem.

It really is that simple.

So if I break down your argument, it seems to be saying:

"If a liberal wins office, he/she is just going to force me to do something I don't like and that's unacceptable! If a conservative wins, they can make whatever rules they want because they love America."

Okay, so I'm being a little dramatic (for the fun of it, of course), but in the context of a democratically-elected mayor and city council expanding opportunities for bikes to be used as a legitimate form of transportation, your argument is a bit moot.

Originally Posted by Thegonagle

There was a statewide bicycle registration program, until Ventura eliminated it. One problem was the fees collected, IIRC less than $10 per bike every two years, weren't enough to pay for anything beyond administering the program itself. The prevailing logic at the time was "why bother?"

On the one hand, I disagreed when the program was eliminated because I thought it was a useful tool for law enforcement to reunite owners with their stolen property from across jurisdiction lines (assuming the owner bothered to register the bike.)

On the other hand, I didn't miss it, because I personally never bothered to register my own bikes.

As we know, recreating a registration program today will cost a lot more than building upon the old one ever would.

Hmm, I never knew this program existed, though I suppose I really wouldn't as I was far too young.

The problem is that while a state-wide system would be better if implementing a tax, it would then call into question what people from other states were obliged to do. Does a Sconnie riding on our trails have the responsibility to have his bike registered and pay the fee? Unless all states implement some sort of system (and good luck with that!), it would be impossible to truly enforce any of it.