Vehicle Emissions Bumper Sticker
Right now there is a lot of politics going on in Washington and Oregon regarding bikes and transportation infrastructure. Tomorrow the Oregon senate votes on building a mega-bridge over the Columbia River that is approximately five miles long, will displace thousands of homes and businesses by way of eminent domain – the planning for this bridge has been going on for already about 10 years, has cost millions of dollars – is already over budget because of PLANNING alone. The people who live in NE and N Portland have a higher risk of respiratory and other health problems because of the additional road use and they want to build a new bridge with expanded lanes because I-5 wasn’t enough.
Umm. Isn’t that why they have I-205?
Regardless, the CRC supporters have been pulling every ludicrous string in their arsenal. The usual “bike tax” ridiculousness comes up time and time again as if legislatures are in this insulative bubble.
You don’t need business experience to be in politics or to read anything about previous implementations of taxes.
Other places that have attempted to implement a bike tax have found that it is more costly to run it than it is to receive funds from it. It’s not a new idea. I’ve had bike from the ’70s that have had licenses on them from counties. And guess what? They don’t anymore. Because they found out it doesn’t work.
Not to mention you can’t individualize what a cyclist is – do you tax the user or the bike? What if a person owns 2 bikes? 12 bikes? Minor vs adult? Home owner vs renter? Car owner? Do they have insurance?
So exactly how would you implement a bike tax?
And then we have this gem, Washington State Representative Ed Orcutt, who apparently believes that cycling leads to air pollution because of the “cyclist’s increased respiration.”
Yup.
You apparently don’t need to know anything about science to get into politics either.
So when Mr. Orcutt gets into his SUV at the end of the week and drives the 80 miles to Kalama, let’s think of who’s causing the more air pollution.
I had a small collection of these stickers, one of which I sport on my tall bike. Now mass produced for your pleasure. Slap them where ever you want. On your bike. On your car. On your neighbor’s Hummer. It’s out of my hands now.