A Libertarian Argument To Subsidize Cycling?

Like many bookish young people of my generation, I had my "Ayn Rand phase."  I actually believed (or, at least, thought I believed) that if you want something, you should pay for it and you should only get what you pay for.  If you can't afford more, I believed, it was your own damned fault.

Of course, to libertarians--a very loose term that is normally used to describe Randians--taxes are anathema. But most see them as, if not a necessary evil, then at least as a reality:  after all, we're not likely to privatize roads, bridges and such any time soon.  To the extent that they're willing to tolerate having their money "confiscated" by the government, they believe that people should get only what they pay for.

Every once in a while, I encounter that line of thinking when some driver swears at me or anyone else, upon learning I'm a cyclist, lapses into an anti-bike rant.  Every single time some motorist vented his or her rage at me for taking up space in "his" or "her" roadway--or at having part of it "taken away" by a bike lane--or questioned my patriotism or simply expressed disdain of me because I choose two wheels instead of four--he or she said something along the lines of, "Well, you don't pay taxes!"

As I have pointed out to more than one such driver--and in this blog--the only taxes that they pay and we don't are the ones added to the price of gasoline.  If anything, we might be paying higher proportions of our incomes in taxes, because drivers--especially if they are salespeople, contractors or work in other auto-dependent endeavors--can write off much of the expense of driving and maintaining their cars.  Moreover, they make heavier use of the infrastructure we and they pay for.

Even if they are misinformed about who pays and how much, most people with whom I've gotten into arguments or discussions about bike vs car taxes are pretty consistent in their beliefs about taxation.  Also, they seem to agree with me on this:  Taxation is an effective way to regulate behavior.  That is why people (some, anyway) donate to charities:  It lowers their tax bills.  In my city and other jurisdictions, it's also helped to reduce smoking, among other things.

If we follow this line of reasoning, one might expect that tax policy could not only entice more people ride bikes to work, it could also encourage employers to encourage their employees to pedal to the office or factory or studio or wherever they work.

Well, there is evidence that such policies actually work.  In 2003, Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (Think of a British IRS.) enacted a regulation (EIM 21664), commonly known as "The Cycle to Work Scheme".  It allows employers to provide bicycles to their employees tax-free.  That is, tax-free for both the employers and employees, who do not have to declare them as part for their employment tax or as part of their taxable income, respectively.

Of course, certain conditions have to be met.  You don't get to deduct your custom Mercian or Bob Jackson--unless, of course, you are using it mainly for job-related travel and your employer provides it for that purpose.  HMRC doesn't expect employees to provide detailed records of how they use their bikes "unless there is clear evidence to suggest that less than half of the use of the cycle or equipment is on qualifying journeys."  Now, I'm no expert on US, let alone British, tax law, but I imagine (from my reading of the policy) that taking the bike on a charity ride or some other such event every now and again wouldn't disqualify the bike or the rider.

Notice the word "equipment" is included. It includes helmets that conform to European standard EN-1078, child seats, lights (including dynamos), bells and bulb horns, reflective clothing and front, rear and spoke reflectors. So it won't pay for your lycra "Sky Team" kit, cycle computers or training.

According to a study the Institute for Employment Studies released last year, there have been more than a million successful applications for Cycle to Work since 2007.  According to a survey of 13,000 users, nine percent were non-cyclists before they became part of the "scheme", and respondents, on average, said they are now cycling more than twice as many miles as they pedaled before the scheme.  Even among already-committed cyclists, about two-thirds said they'd increased the amount of riding they did before they entered the program.

The IES said that even if five percent of participants--9200 people--cycled 30 minutes a day as a result of their involvement in the program, their reduced absenteeism and increased fitness saved 72 million GBP a year.  That's 7826 GBP (10173 USD at current exchange rates).  How many programs, in any country, save that much money per person?

Ironically, that is the most palatable argument you can make about taxes to a libertarian (or my younger Ayn Randian self):  Something saves tax money, and reduces the tax burden on people.

Now, about a single-payer national health care system....

Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Perhaps it won't surprise you to know that I've never watched any of the Kardashians' TV shows.  Part of the reason, I confess, is that I haven't looked at TV in a few years--except for the times I've watched reruns of The Golden Girls and Everybody Loves Raymond with my mother.  I haven't even owned a television set in about four years.

But even when I still had a television set, I wasn't spending my time with shows like The Kardashian Family.  I simply don't care about their antics.  I hear about some of them--the marriages, the divorces and such--from other people or during radio newscasts.  And whatever capacity I might have for schadenfreude isn't even stoked by events like Kim getting tied up and robbed of $10 million in jewelry in Paris.  

I must admit, though, that I got a laugh out of this:



For one thing, the sight of anyone over the age of four riding a bike in a furry pink jacket is just over-the-top hilarious.  For that matter, seeing someone who's supposed to be a fashion icon in such a jacket--on a bright red bicycle, no less--is comical.  

At least Kendall Jenner seems to have a sense of humor about herself.  As falls flat on her face, her glasses fall off her nose and her legs go up in the air.  If anything, I think she was happy about that last part:  She probably has more followers, on Twitter, Instagram and  TV, when her legs are up--though, perhaps, not as many as her half-sister got for being tied up.

The Last Miles, The Longest Miles

Paris and Los Angeles are "the last cities standing", if you will, in the contest to host the 2024 Olympics.

Upon visiting each city, Olympic Committee members noted that the City of Light and La-La Land both had, among other things, already-existing venues for hosting events.  So, while hosting the Games won't be cheap, it won't be quite as expensive as it would be in some other cities.  In other places, the need to construct everything from new stadiums to housing for athletes has spawned opposition from citizens who believe the money could be better spent on, say, hospitals or schools.  Thus, everyday people as well as high public officials in the home of Impressionism and the kingdom of the silver screen support their hometowns' bids for the 2024 Games.

The Olympic Committee, of course, also found vast differences between Paris and Los Angeles.  One of them is the distances athletes, spectators and others would have to travel to and from events.  Although its officials are making efforts to develop a real mass transportation system and to make their town more bike-friendly, L.A. is still considered the capital of car-centered culture.  The City of Angels was founded in 1781, but it didn't become one of the major cities of the United States until about World War I--which, of course, is the time the automobile literally changed the region's, and the nation's, landscape.

Paris, on the other hand, is a pretty compact city.  It's almost exactly the same size as the Bronx (with nearly three times the population).  Thus, most people can walk, cycle or take take mass transit to work, shop or do almost anything they need to do, and arrive in their destinations within minutes.  Paris, of course, has one of the largest bike-share programs in the world, and no point in "Paname" is more than 500 meters from a Metro (subway) station.

That difference is emblematic, not only of the two cities, but also (to a large degree) the countries of which they are part. You probably wish, as I do, that more people would ride bikes to work.  In fact, you might wish that you were one of the people who rides to work.  If you are, you have a lot of company:  In various surveys, people have said they would bike to work if they lived closer and there were facilities like secure parking and places where they could wash up and change clothes.

The fact that this country depends on the internal combustion engine more than almost any other is what has led people to live further from their workplaces than their peers in just about every other nation.  (The Tri-State area has now become the Quad-State Area, and Las Vegas has become a de facto suburb of L.A.)  Let's face it:  Someone who lives 200 kilometers away from his or her job isn't going to ride a bike to work, even if he or she were capable of doing so.  

The fact that this country and culture are so auto-dependent has led to what is one of the most vexing ironies of transportation.  It can be expressed thusly:  "The last miles are the longest."  So, as an example, it could take someone an hour to go the 30 miles from home to work in his or her car.  But the last three or four miles might take up half of that commuter's time.

The reason is that the last part of the commute is usually the most congested part.  Even if someone commutes on a bus or train, that last part is the longest, especially if the commuter is headed for a large terminal like New York's Penn Station or Port Authority Bus Terminal--and has to take a local bus or train from there.

Longtime New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham rides to work in 2010.

Some folks in Bedford, Massachusetts are aware of this phenomenon.  So, they came up with an idea to encourage more of their town's workforce to ride their bikes to their jobs:  They designated parking spaces near the town line for people who would, after parking their cars, pedal the rest of the way.  

A year after this program's implementation, more people are riding to work. Still, Selectmen Margot Fleischman would like to see more people avail themselves to the option of pedaling from the town line to its center, which takes less time than driving.  While she is thinking of the benefits (and possibly pleasures) of cycling, she is also thinking about traffic congestion in the town's center.

If more people are willing to follow the lead of those who park and pedal, the last few miles of a commute will still be the longest only because of the anticipation and dread of facing bosses, customers or whom- or whatever the workday might bring!