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Also, the idea is not to switch ALL driving to biking. That would be silly. The idea is to support and encourage biking where it makes sense. If you're doing short or medium-distance trips where you have limited cargo, biking can work very well, better than cars, both for the individual and for society at large. But only if we build our transportation infrastructure such that biking isn't dangerous.



But if the promotion of biking comes at the expensive of those who cannot bike (via transit/driving taxes etc) then the situation may occur where the disabled and elderly are in fact financing the biking lifestyle of the able-bodied. We are nowhere near this now, but if say 75% of people started commuting via bike the other 25 might wind up paying for the infrastructure. So there is both an infrastructure and taxbase problem to deal with before society at large can take up biking.


I don't disagree, but even the bike capitals of the world of Amsterdam and Copenhagen don't have bike rates that high. They're more in the 33-50% range depending on which area you're looking at.

I agree that we also need strong transit. I wish we could get a real subway around these parts.

I'd also like to reiterate that in these bike-friendly countries, many elderly actually still bike. In fact, instead of looking at it as something that doesn't account for their hypothetical bad health, you can look at biking as something that supports their health being good as long as possible. Part of why America is so fat is likely because of how car-dominant we are.


Most local road infrastructure is already largely covered by general fund taxes, so if anything bikers should be able to use the roads they've already paid for.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-pa...




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