Response to: OlsonOnline: Naked bikers and other tales from the city

Emissions? Isn’t the narrow focus on emissions just a necessity because the courts have allowed our southern neighbor to craft their own emission standards, because they pertain to “emissions?”

Could we not simply use our tax authority to not allow the tax write-off (in the state of Oregon) for passenger vehicles (even SUVs and such) that get less than 30 miles to the gallon (in real life MPG tests). But people would complain about the “safety” issue of gas hogs, and the restriction on consumer choice.

Couldn’t we focus on a per vehicle write off not based on mileage, and not based on whether it uses gas or not, but just whether it provides personal transport? A bike is a vehicle too (personal transport), and for 2 grand someone could get a grand one. A flat vehicle write off limit of 2 grand should do, against taxable income.

I could even argue that such a 2 grand write off could be applied against the actual tax obligation rather than the taxable income and still result in higher tax revenue than under the current tax law allowing full write off of the sale price.

If folks can make the dividing line for argument the big car versus little car debate over "safety", then it surely is no less rational to argue the safety mismatch between bikes and cars on the same "personal transport" pathways called roads. Someone could make a demonstration on this point without even riding a bike but instead by riding a suitably trained horse into Portland and out of Portland on a regular basis.

There was a home, out along Tillstrom Road (used to be called Market Road 30) that leads from Foster road over to 242nd into the future heart of Damascus, that used to have a bunch of geese that would routinely run across the road. I haven't seen them in a long time, it is as if they have been run over, figuratively and literally. But they did serve a similar function to a speed bump. Today's bikers or horse riders or even walkers are just scoffed at by folks in their new-fangled horseless carriages. It does not matter whether they are on a bike or horse or on foot, they are all naked because they are not wearing a steel (or fancy composite) reinforced shell against other folks wearing similar attire.

Neither Oregon nor the Portland Metro area makes cars for export from this region to other states or for the international market. Thus, from an economic development perspective, a genuine economic development argument not the version subscribed to by the Portland Development Commission, we could seek to push for a 2 grand upper tax write-off limit per personal-transport device. (If we were in Brazil or some other similar country we would argue that we should make our own cars rather than import them, but such arguments need not be made within Oregon where we just do not want to subsidize importation).

I could flip the argument over and assert that the tax write-off the entire price of an imported (interstate context) car, particularly a big car, is a dramatic anti-economic-development public policy that must be ended. It fuels our dependence upon fuels, which are also imported. It is a "naked policy" of consumption from out of state. It is naked in the sense that there is no public policy that can support our continued encouragement of big-four-wheeled consumption.

An argument at the cusp of my alternative dividing line for argument pertains to the car pooler who does not get even a bike – should they get a 2 grand write-off too? The biker, with his 2 grand write-off, could argue that they needed to pay 2 grand for their fancy bike rather than a mere 100 dollars for a Chinese import, and that it is good for economic development (even if we do not make bikes in Oregon).

Lets get back to the point raised at OlsonOnline, interconnected stories and transportation . . .

All four stories are related. Let me explain how. First, remember that back in June, Portland became the first municipality in the country to achieve a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, the main culprit in global warming. I attributed that remarkable achievement to Portland's "visionary transportation policies" and its [insistence] on smart growth. Smart growth encourages people to live near their places of work which, in turn, allows people to leave their cars at home.
[ OlsonOnline: Naked bikers and other tales from the city ]

How would my play piece above affect the distribution of the transportation budget between the naked travelers and the non-naked travelers? Not to mention global warming. Not to mention the benefit of having to actually come face to face with strangers in our travels, just long enough to make eye contact. If we move slow enough we might even feel compelled to greet a fellow traveler with a simple, "Hello, how are your today," precisely because they are naked. But that would make us feel naked, at least in the sense that we are mere humans and dependent upon interaction with others, and thus vulnerable rather than invincible and alone like a wild cat in Africa. We live amongst lots of other folks but that does not itself make us civil, it makes us less civil because of the anonymity, made worst by our steel boxes on wheels.

UPDATES: Just a couple blog posts on Peak Oil.

An Unending Fossil Fuel Transportation Boondoggle - The Band Plays On
Local Rags to Big Mags - They're Talking About Peak Oil