Get off my (?) road

One of the more common digs at cyclists is that we don't pay our share of "road taxes." So, "Get off my road." Drivers have never actually yelled that at me, but the argument shows up regularly on the FaceGram, InstaSpace or whatever social-media platform I happen to be avoiding that day. According to my Close Personal Friend "Mike" — I mean "Mark" — at Bikepush.com, this tax stuff is actually tracked by federal agencies. Here's the first thing to understand: American roads are not paid for by a simple road-use fee. A substantial portion comes from property taxes, sales taxes and other general taxes. Cyclists own property. Cyclists buy things at TJ Maxx. Roads are also funded by fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and tolls. I'm going to take a wild guess here: 99.368 percent of bicycle riders also drive cars. In other words, most cyclists are already paying many of the same taxes and fees as the people complaining about them. The person shouting out the car window generally assumes the cyclist contributed nothing. Let's take a look at what that cyclist actually paid. Property taxes, sales taxes, state income taxes and other general taxes help fund transportation whether you own one car, six cars or none. The 2022 National Household Travel Survey found that nearly nine out of 10 U.S. households have a vehicle available. Therefore, most cyclists are drivers, too. They pay fuel taxes and registration fees just like everybody else. As my Close Personal Friend Bob — I mean Mark — puts it: "You paid for the gym membership and took the stairs." And what about the genuinely car-free cyclist? That person is still paying sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes and all the other general taxes that help fund roads. If anything, that cyclist may be subsidizing the system while using the least expensive and least harmful form of transportation. Now, before drivers start throwing things at me, let me make something clear: This isn't a dig at drivers. I are one. You am, too. The point is that drivers don't pay the entire cost of the roads either. A significant portion comes from general tax revenue paid by everybody — cyclists and drivers alike. The federal gas tax is a good example. It has been frozen at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993 and was never indexed to inflation. By June 2026, it had lost about 56 percent of its purchasing power. If it had simply kept pace with inflation, it would be roughly 42 cents a gallon today. That helps explain why the Highway Trust Fund keeps needing help. More than $276 billion has been transferred into the fund since 2008, and the Congressional Budget Office projects the highway account may not have enough money to meet its obligations to states in fiscal year 2028. Yikes. And then there's the road itself. Recreational cyclists aren't pedaling down an interstate. At the local level, where most recreational cycling happens, property taxes and general funds outweigh locally collected fuel and vehicle taxes by roughly eight to one. Local governments also receive state money generated from highway-user charges. But much of the transportation system is ultimately supported by the same general tax base that cyclists and drivers both contribute to. We're all in this together. There's another point that gets overlooked: Roads wear out because of the weight of the vehicles that use them. The damage caused by a bicycle is negligible compared with the damage caused by motor vehicles. Whatever is wearing roads out, it isn't a bicycle. Then comes the inevitable question: "Yeah, Tom, but what about all those expensive bike lanes?" In 2023, about 1.36 percent of the Transportation Alternatives budget went toward pedestrian and bicycle alternatives. That doesn't include bicycle and pedestrian improvements incorporated into larger transportation projects, but even so, we're talking about a very small slice of the transportation pie. And cyclists help pay into that pie, too. So, if you're a cyclist who has been feeling guilty about not paying your "fair share" of the roads, relax. You paid.