Pedestrians don’t use those roads, usually enforced by law. Their taxes are subsidizing roads they are at best sidelined on, and in many cases have their experience made worse and riskier for.
Bicyclists do use roads, but need much less space - far less than the half of the road their taxes pay for even for the cyclists who don’t own a car. Nobody needs a 6 lane road for bicyclists - even a single lane can handle more people than would fit in cars on that kind of wide road.
The underlying problem here is the spatial inefficiency of driving: you need far more public space for the same number of people and that requires more expensive infrastructure to build and maintain than it would if people primarily used active travel or transit.
The fairest way to pay for the infrastructure which is required to support a predominantly private-vehicle based model would be to fund it entirely by user fees, which would also handle the case of larger vehicle owners paying more to reflect their greater use, but because that model has been subsidized and often legally required for so long most people aren’t even aware of how much that’s true.
>Pedestrians don’t use those roads, usually enforced by law.
They do, it's called "sidewalk".
>Their taxes are subsidizing roads they are at best sidelined on, and in many cases have their experience made worse and riskier for.
Even if they don't walk on the streets and only walk by unpaved footpaths they might be still using roads to get their food and clothes shipped to them.
>Bicyclists do use roads, but need much less space - far less than the half of the road their taxes pay for even for the cyclists who don’t own a car. Nobody needs a 6 lane road for bicyclists - even a single lane can handle more people than would fit in cars on that kind of wide road.
But they pay zero extra tax regardless of the space they use when they don't own a car. So I am not sure what the point you are trying to make here. A one lane road is not free, somebody has to pay for it.
>The underlying problem
I got it in the first 1000 posts on HN from anti-car people, I just have not seen "driving is subsidized" yet so I had been asking what is it based on.
Bicyclists do use roads, but need much less space - far less than the half of the road their taxes pay for even for the cyclists who don’t own a car. Nobody needs a 6 lane road for bicyclists - even a single lane can handle more people than would fit in cars on that kind of wide road.
The underlying problem here is the spatial inefficiency of driving: you need far more public space for the same number of people and that requires more expensive infrastructure to build and maintain than it would if people primarily used active travel or transit.
The fairest way to pay for the infrastructure which is required to support a predominantly private-vehicle based model would be to fund it entirely by user fees, which would also handle the case of larger vehicle owners paying more to reflect their greater use, but because that model has been subsidized and often legally required for so long most people aren’t even aware of how much that’s true.