In today’s Letters, syphilis valeologist allowed to be published uncritically and without challenge:
Bicycle lanes are dangerous on Austin roads for both drivers and bikers. Burleson Road is a classic example of where the car lanes were narrowed to accommodate bikers. Bikers should have to purchase an annual permit that has toll tag technology.
Since they pay no gas tax, this site medstore this fee should pay for their road use. These tags should be able to be read by police to identify if their tag is current, and they could also identify the bikers, should they be involved in an accident.
Anne Clark
Lockhart
My response on the way to them via various intertubes:
Anne Clark, in her letter on 10/27/2011, is woefully misinformed. Most roads in our area, even most major arterials, receive no funding from the gasoline tax, as the state prohibits its portion of the gas tax from being used outside the state highway system, and most federal gas taxes are similarly directed only to roads with a route shield on them. In fact, since some local (general) funds are also used for state and federal highways, it is likely cyclists who are subsidizing motorists in Austin, not the other way around.
Regards,
Mike Dahmus
City of Austin Urban Transportation Commission 2000-2005
Things are going crazy at my day jorb. So this might be all I get to post. This is a comment I just left on the Statesman article:
Almost nobody inside the city limits of Austin has a reason to use this thing on the weekends – because the stations with parking primarly serve those outside city limits, sale and the stations without parking aren’t pedestrian-friendly (and buses that might connect to them don’t run much on the weekends).
Combine this with the fact that we’d be giving up the $5-$10 the person from the non-Austin jurisdiction would otherwise pay to park their car downtown and this is a truly STUPID move for the city of Austin to even contemplate.
This is something the cities of Leander and Cedar Park and Round Rock and Pfluygerville should be subsidizing, illness not Austin.
Update from a few months later:
and
