Vancouver Bike Lane, by Mike Bjork
Josh Cohen decisively debunks the idea that cyclists are freeloading on the contributions of drivers:
The Seattle Department of Transportation’s 2009 annual report breaks down the agency’s $340.8 million budget by funding source. The gas tax accounts for $13.4 million, or 4 percent of that total. The full budget breakdown (in millions):
Grants & Other: $96.9 (29 percent)
Debt: $77.4 (23 percent)
Bridging the Gap (a property-tax levy passed by voters in 2007): $60.9 (18 percent)
General Fund: $42.3 (12 percent)
Reimbursables: $42 (12 percent)
Gas Tax: $13.4 (4 percent)
Cumulative Reserve Fund: $7.6 (2 percent)
There’s no obvious problem with this funding distribution because we’re all supposed to use the streets. But the corollary is that we’re all supposed to (safely) use the streets — not just people in cars with a right not to be inconvenienced by slower vehicles.
Moreover, the width of many city streets is a function of the space that cars take up. You could get by with one-lane streets, two lanes on roads that carry bus routes, in the absence of cars.
It’s also always worthwhile to mention the enormous subsidy that driving gets in the sales tax exemption for gasoline.
Yes, but…the right of cars to use the entire street is in the Bible!
And in the constitution remember, and the free market says so too!
The article by Josh Cohen is such a simple-minded piece of tripe that I’m surprised Martin would put it here. I’ll just point out a few of the omissions and mischaracterizations. I don’t have time to go through it point by point.
For starters, much of the Seattle Department of Transportation budget has nothing to do with streets. Cohen actually noted that, but Martin’s post here makes it sound like $340.8 million is spent on Seattle streets every year. Not even close.
Read the budget. Here are just a few of the things SDOT is spending money on that have nothing to do with motor vehicles using streets:
Alaskan Way Viaduct and SEAWALL REPLACEMENT: $40 million. The seawall is to keep the entire waterfront from sliding into Elliott Bay. It would have to be replaced even if there were no streets in that are. It is not a street project.
KIng Street Station remodel: $26 million. What does this have to do with streets?
Mountain to Sound Greenway trail: $3 million. This is not streets
Burke-Gilman Trail Extension: $25 million. This is not streets
Mercer Corridor Project: $116 millino. This is a beautification project for Paul Allen. To just repave those blocks of Mercer and Valley Streets would cost just a few million dollars. The rest is a gift to Paul Allen, not a street project.
Lake Union Street Canal Trail: $5.5 million. Not a street.
In addition, the $130 million for “bridge rehabilitation and replacement” and “bridge seismic Retrofit” include sidewalks on most bridges, which are used by pedestrians and bicyclists. How would walkers and bikers get around this city if there were no bridges?
That is just some of the spending that is not on “streets”, while the title of Martin’s article imples that SDOT’s entire budget is spent on “streets.”
Arguably, the trails do count as streets even though you can’t drive motor vehicles on them.
The title says the gas tax doesn’t cover the cost of streets – which is true. Most funding comes from general taxes or debt, not vehicle charges, so it’s entirely appropriate to spend the revenue on both street and non-street uses.
But how much is actually spent on streets? And what revenue source(s) are used to pay off the debt? And, do you consider the $60 million-plus per year the city collects in parking fees, parking fines, and the commercial parking tax combined “general taxes”? Is the MVET a “general tax”?
“For starters, much of the Seattle Department of Transportation budget has nothing to do with streets.”
It’s called Seattle Department of Transportation vs “Seattle Department of Streets” for a reason. Josh’s point is that cyclists do pay into the system even though we don’t pay gas taxes when we are riding our bikes. SDOT is just adjusting their spending priorities to include more cycling and pedestrian projects. Looking through their annual report it’s obvious that the numbers, while improved, aren’t a massive shift away from the car as a transportation method within the city of Seattle. That said, pedestrian and cycling projects are relatively cheap so they will most likely never show up as a large percentage of SDOT’s budget.
It’s interesting that so many people think Mercer is being done for Paul Allen, who owns some but by no means all of the property in the area and it contributing $30m toward the project. If you look at who uses Mercer though, it’s almost exclusively for I-5 access. It’s a very important route for industrial access for Interbay and Ballard, but freight only makes up about 4.8% of the traffic:
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/579A7E3F-1F42-4D3D-A722-93D389BC04FF/0/Seattle_Freight_Segmentation_Study_August08.pdf
The vast majority is single-occupant vehicles, many of which are driven by commuters who live outside Seattle and therefore are not paying the property taxes at all! The same can be said of other street projects as well–it’s being paid for by Seattle taxpayers, but benefiting a large number of commuters from outside Seattle. That’s one reason I support tolling wherever possible; it actually charges the people who use the road.
As for the revenue side, there is not even any attempt to explain the funding source for most of it, such as:
Grants and other
Debt
Reimbursables
The general fund supplies $42.3 million, but at least that much goes into the general fund this year from parking fees and parking fines, which are paid by motorists, not pedestrians or bicyclists.
Then there is the MVET, which is paid only by motorists, and is something like $70 million this year. That money is not spent on streets — it goes to ST. But it is paid only by motorists, and should be spent on streets.
Bridging the Gap is not only a “property tax levy”, it also includes a commercial parking tax, paid only by motorists, and which will bring in over $20 million this year.
Bridging the Gap is also not just a “street project”. Along with street projects, bridging the Gap also includes:
Repair or restore 144 blocks of sidewalks.
Build 117 blocks of new sidewalks.
Rehabilitate 40-50 stairways.
Restripe 5,000 crosswalks.
Create “safe routes to schools” near 30 elementary schools.
Support the development and implementation of a Pedestrian Master Plan.
Provide funding to implement the Bicycle Master Plan.
Add 4 miles of new multi-use paths.
Secure up to 45,000 hours of new Metro Transit service.
Enhance transit and safety improvements on 3 key transit corridors.
Prune 25,000 street trees to prevent safety and security hazards.
Plant 8,000 new street trees.
Fund 3 major capital improvement projects: Spokane Street Viaduct, Mercer Street Corridor, and King Street Station.
As mentioned above, Mercer Street and King Street Station are not “street” projects.
Why is it assumed that the MVET and parking fees should be used only for streets? In the case of parking fees, that could be thought of as a congestion management device. It makes sense that if people are discouraged from driving by it, the revenue could fund alternative transportation, i.e., bike/ped/transit.
Your comments about funding sources are somewhat disingenuous.
The city has the obligation to provide services to all of my manifestations.
I am at various times during the week, a pedestrian, a transit rider, a bicyclist and a motorist.
I pay taxes on whatever I buy, on property I own, and wherever else the government sees fit to take a bite.
This balkanization of funding sources and beneficiaries is pointless.
Unless your entire existence is inside a vehicle, you live in a city and that means seawalls, bike trails, street trees and all the other stuff that makes life in the city for a lot of people.
Norman,
The fact that a tax is paid exclusively by a certain group of people does not mean that the money must be spent in a way that only benefits that group of people.
Should sales tax from restaurants only be spent on dining-out subsidies? After all, only restaurant patrons pay the tax, so isn’t it unfair to spend the money in a way that primarily benefits home cooks?
Should tax from beer and wine only be spent on lowering cover charges for bars? After all, only drinkers pay the tax, so isn’t it unfair to spend the money in a way that primarily benefits non-drinkers?
I picked the latter example on purpose. Very few people here would argue that driving is bad and should be banned, but at least some of us believe that society (or at least Seattle) would be better off if there was less driving. Alcohol taxes discourage drinking both by making it more expensive and by providing revenue for anti-drinking campaigns. Similarly, gas taxes discourage driving both by making it more expensive and by providing revenue for improving alternative methods of transportation.
“The fact that a tax is paid exclusively by a certain group of people does not mean that the money must be spent in a way that only benefits that group of people.”
So if we only tax rich people, we should only provide services to rich people?
Aleks is right about this, the MVET is for ST, that is an agency for MASS Transit. That means buses,bikes,pedestrain access to the same, and Light Rail and Heavy Rail.
Taxes are raised for the good of all, not just the privileged few.
Mercer Street is not a street project. That’s rich. Your characterization shows why your opinions get so heavily discounted.
It is the concept of “subsidizing”, that is being misused. If motorists pay $150 million per year in fees and taxes that are paid only by motorists, and $150 million per year is spent on infrastructure that benefits only motorists, then motorists are not being “subsidized” by the general public, as transit users are.
It doesn’t matter if the MVET is dedicated to ST buses and trains. It is still a tax on motorists, and should be used as a revenue source to offset expenditures on infrastructure that is only used by motorists. To claim that motorists don’t pay the full cost of streets, and use as part of the argument the fact that the MVET is spent on transit, and not streets, is just an accounting gimmick. The MVET is, in fact, revenue from motorists, and should count against the cost of streets.
Well, just for the record, nobody pays for ALL of anything (ref: 13 trillion US debt).
If revenue had to equal expense, by mode, then transit wouldn’t exist (Ref: 2% all trips, 50% of revenue).
Careful what you wish for.
If revenue had to equal expense, by mode, other things we wouldn’t have:
(1) Any roads. At all. The cost of local road maintenance isn’t covered by road taxes *or* by local property taxes in many areas. Sales taxes usually cross-subsidize….
(2) Sewers. They certainly don’t pay for themselves.
(3) Water. It’s very rare to find a place where the water system isn’t cross-subsidized by some sort of general taxes.
(4) The police. They aren’t fully funded by the proceeds of catching criminals (and honestly, we don’t want them to be: it creates perverse incentives to frame people).
(5) The army. They are not funded by the loot we receive from conquering foreign countries, and haven’t been for a very long time.
Et cetera.
Nice try Norman, but this Initiative was put up for a vote by Mr Eyman, and rejected by the public.
It’s a tired argument. Besides, why don’t we have more chances to vote for which road projects we want to fund by putting them up for a vote, rather than just relying on your weak arguments.
Put together a ballot iniative that spells out the specific projects, the funding sources, the BENEFITS of the project.
Be specific. Show us who will pay, and who will benefit. Let the public decide.
Frankly, YOU CAN’T. You’ve proven it over time.
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Norman,
It’s evident from past discussions that debating definitions with you is pointless, so if streets that happen to be bridges, happen to benefit wealthy people, or are also used by bikes and peds don’t count as “streets” feel free to define it that way. The rest of us will continue to use a common-sense definition of the term.
I’ll note, however, that the whole point of the post is that all modes can and should use the streets.
According to http://bit.ly/blhnhC the average gasoline consumption per capita in Washington State in 2007 was 406 gallons. That means that the 6,488,000 persons in Washington State –Per Washington State Dept of Financial Management (http://bit.ly/9H6UOH) consumed 2,634,128,000 gallons of gas which means that theoretically $1,432,965,632 should have been collected in gas taxes (both federal and state) of which the state portion is approximately $987,798,000. According to the Washington State Dept of Transportation approximately 50% of this total is allocated to counties and cities. I don’t know the allocation formula. There are obviously rebates and refunds that would reduce these amounts.
This supports the notion that gas taxes collected are a small fraction of the total transportation department budgets for various agencies. The information also indicates that the per capita consumption of gas is going down. Since most of these numbers are 2007 information this was slightly before the “crash” so I would surmise that some of the downward trend in consumption was the price spike in gas prices and the use of more energy efficient cars. This begs the question of whether the State should move to a usage based taxation rather than gas tax. e.g. you pay for miles driven.
In what way is a gas tax not a usage tax?
It may not completely uniform, but it works pretty well and with minimum collection costs. Paying for miles driven, regardless of how it is implemented technologically, will require a lot more infrastructure to collect than the current gas tax system. Also, a gas tax incentivizes efficient vehicles – a miles driven tax favors Hummers and Escalades.
USAGE of what?
Use of gas, but it has no mechanism for directing the monies collected to projects that are specific to the users that pay the tax.
In other words, I pay $300 a year in gas tax. Where have the we gotten to vote on specific projects that determine where this is spent? (Yes, there was one referendum, I know).
But all in all, most all of the gas tax I pay gets spent on other mega projects and the like that don’t benefit me directly, since I rarely USE them.
And if you make the argument that they are for the ‘public good’, then well, that’s the same argument that can be made for transit. In effect, I am ‘subsidizing’ someone elses driving habits.
My contention is that increasing fuel efficiency and lower over all consumption is affecting revenue. One possible remedy is a tax on actual miles driven. Another possibility is a return of the onerous vehicle licensing fees.
To echo your point about sales tax: The tax on gasoline is currently 37.5 cents a gallon. At $3 a gallon, a 6.5% sales tax would be 19.5 cents. Thus, over half of the current gas tax revenue is really just redirecting sales tax to motor vehicle uses.
There’s an article in The Toronto Star at this link about a Pay-as-you-drive meter poised to enter market. It is about “a GPS-based system capable of tracking every inch a vehicle travels, how long the trip takes and where it is on the road.” Quoting from the article: “We need to move from a model where people pay for fuel tax to a model where people pay for the roads.”
I have one of these in each car as part of a pay-as-you-drive insurance trial. I’m not paranoid about where I drive so I’m willing to have this device installed in my car. Many others may not be so accepting.
Josh’s post was recently updated, the gas tax paid for a whopping .44% of Seattle’s arterial paving projects in 2009.
“UPDATE
The SDOT budget office sent me their 2009 arterial and non-arterial paving expenditures. They spent $29,377,725 for arterial and $261,000 for non-arterial for a total of $29,638,725. The arterial revenue sources breakdown as follows:
Bonds: $14,748,947 (50.20 percent)
Bridging the Gap Property Tax: $9,693,410 (33 percent)
Bridging the Gap Commercial Parking Tax: $4,801,062 (16.34 percent)
Gas Tax: $129,981 (.44 percent)
Grants: $4,325 (.01 percent)
All of SDOT’s non-arterial paving work was 100 percent funded by the gas tax, but non-arterial work only accounts for .9 percent of total paving expenditures for 2009.
The paving numbers reinforce what the budget numbers already showed: everyone is paying for Seattle’s roads.”
… including kids that aren’t even born yet. Over half the funding for something as basic as repaving roads comes from borrowing money over a long period. I guess ‘pay as you go’ doesn’t work anymore.
NOW would be an excellent time to borrow money to repave roads since construction companies are hungry for work. Lower costs for repaving, low interest rates, and economic stimulus all rolled into one. Sadly, most levels of government are already loaded up in debt so there may not be enough excess debt capacity to take advantage of the current economic climate.
[thread hijacking]
[thread hijacking]
I noticed that most of this is not user-based, thus proving that non-drivers subsidize drivers, too (non-transit riders often bemoan that transit is heavily subsidized).