As cycling as an alternative mode of transportation increases in popularity, lawmakers are taking note — and drooling over the possibility of additional tax revenue.
It’s no secret that policymakers across the country are tripping over their own feet in a rush to encourage trading in the pickup truck for a bicycle. Just another way to promote healthier lifestyles and help the environment, as cycling doesn’t require gasoline, doesn’t emit carbon dioxide and uses less metal in production. But for some elected officials that encouragement also comes as a way to promote tax increases.
The city of Chicago’s efforts to become a more bike-friendly city prompted city alderman Pat Dowell (D) to propose a annual $25 bike tax in order to raise “millions of dollars,” according to the Chicago Tribune. Washington state’s House Democrats also proposed a cycling fee earlier in 2013: a $25 tax on bicycles selling for $500 or more.
But some bike enthusiasts see taxes as counterintuitive to encouraging people to take up cycling.
“I think we’re trying to encourage people to use alternative forms of transportation, and taxing people to do that is probably not a very good incentive to do so,” Marty Pluth, the general manager of Gregg’s Cycle in Seattle, Wash., told Red Alert Politics.
According to Pluth, a local tax placed on buying bicycles would simply encourage consumers to drive a few hours to buy their bikes, sans tax, in Oregon.
“That puts the burden on us as a retailer. The unemployment rate is high enough as it is without making the cost of doing business higher,” Pluth said, explaining that bicycle shops would have to change the mark up of their bookkeeping and setting bike prices.
But besides serving as a disincentive for cyclists, the logistics behind just how a bike tax would be enforced are just too ambiguous.
“While a tax or annual fee on bicycles would help [with costs for special bike lanes], enforcement of a fee is a problem and many people buy new bicycles too rarely for the revenues to make much difference,” Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and self-proclaimed avid cyclist, told Red Alert Politics.
And for those in Chicago, enforcing a bicycle tax could make an already dangerous city worse.
“The idea itself is to raise some income, but the execution of the idea would never profit because it takes away from the real issues,” Michael Salvatore, owner of Heritage Bicycles in Chicago, told Red Alert. “Chicago is not a safe city right now. You’re talking about adding more to a cop’s plate.”
Just last year, Chicago passed New York City in murder rates, earning the crown of murder capital of the U.S.
Salvatore doesn’t believe that a small bike tax would do much to hinder the industry as a whole, but it could potentially set off a whirlwind of red tape.
“Where does it [the revenue] go?” he questioned. “Insurance for the cyclists? Third party bureaucracy to enforce and keep track of these people?”
A cycling tax isn’t something unique to Washington state and Chicago. Georgia, Oregon and Vermont have also considered legislation enforcing a tax on cyclists. Colorado Springs, Colo., and Hawaii have already enacted bike registration laws.
“I think the biggest thing [about this debate] is the legitimacy of cycling as an urban form of transportation,” Salvatore said. “Cycling is actually a real part of everyday life for someone who lives in a city.”
And as more young people flock to urban cities, it’s no wonder they’re ditching their cars in lieu of public transit and bicycles. According to a report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, young Americans have been at the forefront of a declining automobile culture “with the average American between 16 and 34 years of age driving a startling 23 percent less in 2009 than in 2001.”
The PIRG report, published in 2013, cites new technology such as bikesharing as a reason for this reduction, with more than 30 cities with a bikeshare program.
Dowell’s bike tax proposal wasn’t solely an idea to raise money to improve cycling conditions in Chicago; her proposal was an alternative solution to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s idea to raise cable television taxes to increase the city’s revenue.
While the Tribune did estimate that the tax would bring in “millions of dollars,” it is unclear just how much of that money — if any — would actually go towards the city’s cycling-related costs.
Dowell’s office as well as Chicago’s Department of Transportation did not return Red Alert‘s requests for comment. Dowell serves the third ward of Chicago and also sits on the city’s transportation committee.
