Reply to DDOT wants to charge $8/hr for street parking, require payment 24 hours/day

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's extremely cheap to rent a bike on Capital Bikeshare. In fact, it's cheaper than pretty much any other city's bike sharing program. Those fees don't come anywhere close to covering the program's expenses, even though Capital Bikeshare says its users tend to make six figure incomes. The only reason the program can even function is because taxpayers have contributed tens of millions to dollars to cover the shortfall left by cyclists' artificially low rental fees. Why shouldn't Capital Bikeshare fees be raised by enough to cover its expenses? Other cities' bike sharing programs are self financing. 
[/quote]

Bowser wants another $14 million next year from taxpayers to cover the hole created by Capital Bikeshare's low fees. If biking is so popular, why is Capital Bikeshare on the dole? [/quote]

The cost of riding the bus went up this year by 12.5 percent
The cost of riding the subway this year when up by 12.5 percent
The cost of parking in a large vicinity around U Street is going up by almost 1000 percent.
Electric cars will be subject to an excise tax of up to 10 percent 
A city surcharge on gas is going up 4 percent.

The annual membership cost of Capital Bikeshare hasn't increased in more than three years.  [/quote]

It really, really bothers you when people go places by bike, huh?[/quote]

You can dish it out, but you can't take it, huh? [b]All the arguments for dramatically increasing the cost of parking on the street also apply to Capital Bikeshare. 
[/b]
The city pours tens of millions of dollars into Bikeshare every year because the fees it charges are far too low to cover it's costs. Meanwhile, the bike system in NYC receives zero public dollars. Why shouldn't Bikeshare fees be increased to cover its costs? The costs of every other form of transportation are going up by double digits. Maybe cyclists can share in the sacrifice (Bikeshare data shows very few poor people use it).  [/quote]

Oh really? The arguments for increasing the cost of street parking are:

1. It directly increases the availability of street parking.
2. It provides an incentive for people to use transit, walking/bicycling, or even taxi-service-by-app instead of driving and parking - which also indirectly increases the availability of street parking.

In addition, as a economic principle, when something costs more, people generally use less of it.

Now, which of those arguments apply to Capital Bikeshare?[/quote]

1. We have these nonsensical arguments that the public subsidizes drivers. Well, with CaBi that's plainly true. The program says it's user fees, which are far, far lower than what other cities charge, don't come anywhere close to covering its bills. Why is that acceptable? Other city programs are self sufficient.

2. Someone said that if the city can get away with charging $8 an hour for parking on the street, then why shouldn't it? Same question goes for CaBi. Why is it charging below market rates? It says a majority of its users make six figure incomes. They can afford to pay a lot more, and they would.

3. If charging people through the nose for parking, increases parking availability (an Orwellian argument because parking will be too expensive for many people to afford so it won't be available to them), then that's also true of bikes. Cyclists complain all the time that there's not enough bikes available on CaBi. If we charged more, more bikes would be available, by your logic.  [/quote]

+1[/quote]

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