Bike tax idea debated

A proposal to impose a 2 percent tax on sales of new bicycles has failed to win approval in Maine, but with tight state budgets around the country, similar suggestions for funding cycling improvements are likely to follow.

In Wisconsin, for example, the Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 in early May to cut $5 million for bike and pedestrian projects from Wisconsin’s 2012-13 transportation budget. This prompted Milwaukee Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Dave Schlabowske to offers a variation on the Maine idea: devote all the tax revenue generated on bikes and accessories sales to bike projects.

"If we took the 5 percent sales tax those sales generate for the general fund and put them in transportation, we would have $7.5 million to spend on bicycles," Schlabowske wrote in a blog post directed at Gov. Scott Walker. "That is way more than you had to cut from the budget."

Furthermore, he argued, "If we can afford $5.6 billion for highways but we can’t afford $5 million for bicycles and pedestrians, even though they make up about 14 percent of all trips, then I do believe our priorities are broken."

In a previous blog post (at overthebarsinmilwaukee.wordpress.com), Schlabowske detailed how people who ride bicycles already pay more than their share of the costs of the roads on which they ride. (See "Sounding Alarm," November 2010.)

Tom Held is a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.