Last night, I stayed late at work. And I had an early morning class.
So, on my way home, I followed one "shadow":
across the RFK Memorial Bridge
to my home in Queens.
This morning I followed another
on Randalls Island, to the Bronx
and the early risers (or all-night workers) I teach.
I suppose I should thank my lucky stars that Donald Trump, a.k.a. El Cheeto Grande, is President. Almost every day, he manages to say or do something that proves me right. And I like being right.
Well, sometimes, anyway.
One notion of mine that Ein Trumpf manages to confirm on an almost daily basis is this: There is no idea or policy so bad that a politician, or some public figure, won't double down on it.
Oregon's bike tax is a case in point. The Beaver State's Legislature voted for it in July. One of the bill's authors, state Senator Lee Beyer, said that the tax would ensure that cyclists "have skin in the game", apparently ignorant of the fact that we pay the same taxes that everyone else does. And US Congressman and fellow Democrat Earl Blumenauer claimed that the tax would "raise the profile of cycling," whatever that means.
The rationale for the tax is based on faulty logic and some notions that are just plain wrong. For one, the tax was supposed to apply to bicycles costing $500 or more because they are "luxury" items. For someone who commutes or makes deliveries every day, such a machine is not a "luxury", and $500 is about what such a person would have to spend for a new bike that's reliable and durable. If that wasn't bad enough, before the bill was approved, the threshold was lowered to $200.
Worse, it applies to bikes with wheels 26 inches or more in diameter because they are "adult" bikes. Never mind that some good bikes for adults, as well as most folding bikes (which many commuters use) have smaller wheels.
So, instead of realizing how arbitrary their distinctions-- and how unfair and ineffective the tax-- would be, a state Legislative committee wants to do away with 26 inch lower limit but keep the $200 threshold. But, just as there are adult bikes with wheels smaller than 26 inches, some kids' bikes cost well north of $200.
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| Tax me if you can! |
Even worse, to my mind, than any ignorant or misguided definition "luxury" or "adult-sized" is the stipulation that the tax will be used to help improve and maintain the state's
"bicycle infrastructure" system. Now, whenever I hear that phrase, I'm skeptical: What do they mean by it? Bike lanes and paths? I've seen too many that are so poorly-designed,-constructed and -maintained to think "More are better!" Bicycle safety classes? If so, for whom? Drivers? Kids?
As I said previously, cyclists are paying the same taxes as everyone else. That includes gasoline tax: In states like Oregon, nearly all cyclists are also drivers, or at least car owners. The taxes (and I'm not only talking about the ones for petrol) everyone pays are supposed to help improve and maintain the transportation system--of which the "bicycle infrastructure" (the paths and lanes, anyway) are a part. If the "infrastructure" were conceived by engineers and other professionals who are cyclists, I might not mind paying more. But if a new tax is only going to buy more of the same, I'm against it.
Moreover, as left-ish as I am, I still retain some of my youthful libertarian skepticism and cynicism about what the government will actually do once it gets the money. Will it be siphoned off into something other than its stated purpose? Will some politician's pet project be classified as cycling or transportation "infrastructure" so it can receive some of the tax revenue?
If there is no idea or policy so bad that someone with power won't double down on it, there isn't a project so poorly conceived or simply wasteful that someone doesn't want to throw more money at it. And, of course, such people would never pay for such a project themselves: They will tax someone else for the privilege.
The past couple of weeks, we've had our best weather during the work week--just when I've had to teach classes and go to meetings. And all through the past weekend, we had the sort of weather only Marlee could love--because it keeps me home and she can cuddle with me!
So, yesterday, I snuck out for a ride between classes and a meeting. A curtain of clouds crept between us and the sun, but no rain fell and the air was rather mild. Once again, I rode in the Bronx, within a few kilometers of my job.
Yes, that really is dust in the background. But it has nothing to do with the tall cylindrical structures in the background
though it could have at one time. Until the 1980s or thereabouts, they served as an industrial facility. Now they are part of the Cement Plant Park along the Bronx River. I've ridden by and through that park before. It's small, and not exactly rustic, but is oddly quaint and bucolic in the way an old industrial town in New England or the Midwest might be.
Out the other side of the park, I followed a few streets to the area around The Hub, and into a neighborhood often referred to as "Banana Kelly" after the shape of Kelly Street. On another street a couple of blocks from Kelly--Dawson Street--I saw this
and this
and this
all within a block. Not surprisingly, that street is landmarked as part of the Longwood Historic District.
All of those houses, and others on nearby streets, were designed by the same architect, Warren Dickerson, in the 1890s. At that time, the Bronx was still developing: much of the northern and eastern parts were still marshlands, woods or farms.
The houses in this district are 2 1/2 stories tall and semi-detached, separated from each other by side driveways and ornamental iron gates. As attractive as they are, they seem, at first glance to be variations on a theme. That is becuase they are, and that is what Dickerson intended. He wanted to create a unified streetscape, and that he did. While they started with the same basic design, they distinguish themselves from each other in the details in much the same way family members have their own individual characteristics but resemble each other. But what makes them work together is that houses alongside or across from each other "mirror" the angles curves of each others' stoops and bays.
The houses in that district were one of the first attempts--if not the first attempt--to create such visual unity in a neighborhood in New York City. That such a block, and others like it, were created is all the more remarkable when you realize that there were basically no zoning codes in Westchester County--of which the Bronx was a part until it joined New York City, which also had no zoning laws, in 1898.
That those houses remained intact is practically a miracle given the devastation and abandonment that consumed nearby streets and communities during the 1970s. While some of those surrounding areas in the South Bronx have been rebuilt, they do not have the character of the houses I saw on Dawson Street.
Then I biked back to the college, and a meeting. Nobody tells you about such things when you're in graduate school!
