A person only has to look at the key components of how the street “maintenance” fees will be spent to realize the deception that is been playing out here.

As posted above: “Key components of the Safe, Sound and Green Streets Program are: a significant investment in the bicycle network, reducing the conflict between bikes and cars; improvements to the signalizations of lights, reducing green house gases and congestion while improving driving times; and repairing all the arterials in poor and very poor condition”

First on the list is “a significant investment in the bicycle network” so Sam and his self-serving pedal pushing buddies can continue to poach a free ride off of other taxpayers. Appearing last on the list is the primary reason for a street maintenance fee to even exist; repairing all the arterials in poor and very poor condition.

With all the town halls, with the citizen committee where the usual suspect bicycle and transit advocates out numbered representatives for taxpaying motorists and motor freight carriers by three to one, and with all the hoopla, the objective has been an orchestrated façade back door approach to obtain more money to support the freeloading pedal pushers. The actual decisions obviously were made behind closed doors in back rooms directly with bicycle activists, so of course the bicycling community supports the plan; their representatives were in on the deception from the beginning, and because like everything else, they are NOT the ones responsible to pay for the program. Even with a significant amount of money poised to pay for bicycle infrastructure, the bicyclists themselves on their own utility bills will likely pay less than the majority of households due to a bias discount program, yet again feeding off of other taxpayers.

Not only do bicyclists not pay their own way for the specialized infrastructure they use, they continually blame only others never accepting responsibility for their own mishaps, and the majority of bicyclists, as well as many of those who are employed by the City, arrogantly ignore traffic control devices including not stopping at stop signs and blowing through red lights. This demonstrates a pattern of total lack of accountability and irresponsibility on the part of the bicycling community. Sam in blind support (who hides behind an oratory of safety rhetoric) wants the public rather than the bicyclists themselves to pay for aligning stop signs on bicycling routes so bicyclists don’t have to stop for anything, adding bike boxes to intersections that will only generate more conflict between bicyclists and motorists, and the implementation of other congestion producing bicycle priority measures that make it easier for the pedal pushers to ignore their responsibility of riding within the law. A far less costly path to bicycle safety for taxpayers would be to impose strict enforcement of traffic laws on bicyclists, adopt the California law that allows cars and trucks to make right turns in bike lanes, and by requiring bicycles to stop and yield the right-of-way when certain conditions apply. Furthermore, it should be noted that providing specialized bicycle infrastructure is a privilege, not a right. Therefore any such infrastructure should be paid by directly taxing the user bicycle community and taxes on bicyclists only, not taxpayers in general.

As for the rest of the program, the number one top priority for use of these funds must be as the fee is titled, for street maintenance with maintenance coming first (not a bicycle freeloading program). It makes no sense from a priority stand point to add curb extensions or other infrastructure to a street, and then not have enough funding to repave it when the need arises. Programs to reduce traffic congestion also should not be the result of other misaligned and misguided agendas that actually increase congestion. For example, it is illogical to add curb extensions to a street which then creates more stop and go traffic congestion and greenhouse gasses by giving rise to busses and/or streetcars obstructing other traffic by stopping in travel lanes to board passengers and making it difficult for trucks to maneuver; then recommending spending even more of the taxpayer’s money to replace traffic signals that would presumably ease the congestion that has been created by the curb extensions. The better and far less costly option here is not to add the curb extensions in the first place and require transit vehicles to pull over to the curb when stopping for passengers thereby allowing other traffic pass.

Furthermore, any part of a yet to be defined residential discount program that relates to the mode of transport used ought to be scrapped. Not only should bicyclists pay the full amount if not double the fee amount, but transit users also need to pay the full amount, especially since TriMet’s two axle busses do the heaviest damage to the roadways and transit fares contribute nothing financially for the repair.

If this program is adopted “as is” with the current bias and discriminatory discount programs in place, and bicycle babble priority that provides funding for freeloading pedal pushers rather than on street maintenance affecting the majority taxpaying users, then the fee must either be challenged in court, go to a vote of the people or both.