Argument Ammunition

Next time you have to defend the right of bikes to the road, you can drop this little fact.

Many states get at least part of their highway money from statewide sales or income taxes, resulting in walkers and bike-riders subsidizing highways.

Comments

[Contrarian]

More specifically, gas taxes are used to pay for only some of the cost of some of the roads. For the most part, the roads that cyclists are permitted to use -- non-expressways -- are paid for out of the general funds of states, counties, cities and towns, which comes primarily from income, sales and property taxes.

Of course, a tax is not a user fee, and public facilities like parks, libraries and schools are not restricted to those who pay taxes, so it's a non-sensical argument to begin with.