My wife snipped an editorial out of the Seattle Times for my perusal a couple of weeks ago. James Vesely, the opinion page editor, thinks that Seattle bicyclists should be taxed and licensed. My wife, a bleeding-heart liberal who never saw a tax she didn’t like, was incensed that the Times editorial page editor would waste print space on such a petty issue.
I didn’t pay much attention to it—just your run-of-the mill curmudgeon telling the neighborhood kids to get off his road. I figured he was just trolling for comments on the paper’s website—where about 95 percent of the 88 comments disagreed with him. Newspaper websites are starting to look more and more like blogs, thanks to comment fields. Nowadays I check for a comment field before reading an article. If a paper is not willing to let the peanut gallery critique their infotainment pieces, I’m not willing to waste my time reading them.
Vesely yanked the Seattle cyclist chain again last Sunday. The comments covered most bases. One point not stressed enough was the parking issue. I took the above photo of the giant bicycle rack in front of a popular coffee shop last Saturday. It takes up two valuable parking spaces. The number of bikes parked there waxes and wanes throughout the day. I drove past this rack an hour after I took this picture and it had a dozen bikes on it. I expect it will really fill up when the weather improves.
While checking this rack out I also spotted this sticker. Apparently you can call the Seattle Department of Transportation and have a high quality custom-made bike rack installed. This particular rack can hold enough bikes to replace an entire block of parked cars. Vesely should be paying cyclists for giving him and the 3,000-pound steel cocoon he commutes to work in a place to park.
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Comments
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JMG Posted 5:01 pm
08 Feb 2009
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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biodiversivist Posted 11:29 pm
08 Feb 2009
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Pangolin Posted 7:08 pm
09 Feb 2009
People with large waistlines demand parking spaces in front of their homes and other parking spaces within an easy waddling distance of all their favorite big box stores. Frequently people with large waistlines require special handicapped parking spaces due to the effects of those waistlines on their health. That costs LOTS of extra money.
When people with large waistlines have heart attacks they frequently call upon emergency medical services to attend to them increasing the workload on fire departments and county hospitals. They are more frequent visitors to medical clinics and require extra members of the police force to subdue them when they get in trouble.
I'm not saying we should tax every waistline; just those over 32 inches. One-hundred dollars per inch of excess yearly would be a good start. I can't help wondering how much waistline tax Mr. Vesely would pay; probably more than his car's registration.
Put the Carbon Back
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sindark Posted 5:56 am
10 Feb 2009
One suggestion I would make to improve this system would be to include an optional component for cyclists. Those willing to cycle around with a transponder would be credited at a modest rate for distance travelled. This would be in recognition of the non-market advantages of cycling, such as the value of physical fitness as a component in preventative medicine. In 1998, Health Canada estimated the total cost of cardiovascular diseases on the health sector of the Canadian economy to be $18,472.9 million (11.6% of the total cost of all illnesses). Cardiovascular disease is also responsible for 36% of deaths. As such, a subsidy of a few cents a kilometre makes economic sense, as well as potentially generating some good publicity for a system that is likely to be highly unpopular with commuters.
a sibilant intake of breath
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