Extra Pothole Filling Costs More Than NYC Bike Lane Budget

Well I went into a pothole on 47th street and 9th avenue coming out of
My bike store!!
It's outrageous and I can see an accident happening at that spot!!

Potholes are lethal to motorcyclists. Going 7 mph over a pothole on a bicycle is one thing, going 40mph over a pothole on a motorcycle is something else entirely.

Yeah but no one cares about people on two wheels. It's a shame.

The expenditure towards bikes lanes is minuscule in the grand scheme of road construction in New York!

Isn't it all sort of one and the same? I mean, filling potholes helps cyclists as well as drivers. And it's also a prerequisite to building bike lanes. You can't just lay down green paint on a pothole. This comparison is not relevant

Do bike owners pay anything to be on the roads? Last time I checked it's the actual drivers.

Cry me a river.

My bicycle neither pollutes the air nor does it tear up the road. And I pay the same taxes that you do.

My car increases my freedom and productivity to a point that enables me and the clients I call on with it, to have a FAR better quality of life.
I suspect that is the reason the vast majority of people across the globe aspire to, or own a vehicle as soon as they possibly can find a way to do so.
If you hate vehicles so much, why not boycott any product or service that has been in contact with one?

Where did I ever say I hate vehicles? I just said that bikes don't pollute or wear down roads. And why do you assume that I don't own a gasoline vehicle. I actually have a pretty inefficient one at that and a love of big block V-8's.

last time I checked, it was federal subsidies.

Yes, it's called taxes.

Yeah they pay taxes for the roads while motorists pay millions more on top
of already standard tax in various fees.

and THAT's why so many of you attack cyclists:

you are jealous that we are infinitely more efficient and free than your cars are.

busted!

but yeah, we pay the highest taxes on earth. all of us new yorkers.

(scandinavians pay a higher basic tax, but get something in return. we pay many MORE taxes and many more HIDDEN taxes.)

every little person in nyc pays Madison Sq Garden's ENTIRE electricity bill via a hidden tax on your con ed bills, courtesy of Koch and now Mikey.

there are millions of secrets like that they don't want to talk about.

they want to talk about what drinks mikey puts ice in.

and don't forget: long after mikey is gone, we'll still have the same corporate media giving us the "choice' between a Democrat corporate shill and a Republican corporate shill.

ignore politicians. they're irrelevent.

go after the press. they're the real ones behind the curtain.

however motorists do far more damage to roads than bicyclists do. those potholes weren't caused by my 25c bicycle tires...
AND
i'm limited to a smaller percentage of roads that i can use. it's not like i'm allowed on parkways, expressways, interstates, tunnels or the middle section of queens blvd.
edit: technically they were created by temperature fluctuations and only exacerbated by the motorists, but regardless, my bike didn't do much to cause them.

You are a huge tool.

Weather combined with shitty materials and quality of roads is why the roads are so bad.

Furthermore that huge truck that delivered PBR and extra small condoms to your favorite store did more damage to roads then 10000 regular cars.

I already explained that the weather has zilch to do with our rotten roads.

you now either rebut my points or concede you are wrong.

you can't just ignore facts and repeat the govt lie over and over.

wow, a hipster and a small dick comment in one! maybe you should edit a way to work something about spandex in there....
second, that truck carrying my "extra snug" trojans did pay for the roads through registration and a percentage of that shipping cost is worked into the price of an item.

I have ridden/raced/commuted bikes for a long time and I do ride as safe and aware as I possibly can, all the time. But sometimes, after a long hard day, a momentary lapse in concentration can occur and it could be disastrous.. As I found out one evening after work riding down Spring at the intersection of Elizabeth, a perfectly formed, wheel sized pothole about 5 inches deep just waiting to swallow me up and take me down, which it did, straight over the bars sending me to the opposite corner and colliding into a man with a trolley, who I think thought he was being attacked by a ninja.

Remarkably, not a scratch on me. I guess as i didn't see it coming I didn't tense up, just rolled out of it. My bike fared slightly worse with a slight buckle to the front wheel and a scratched brake lever, but it left me wondering it could have been so much worse. There was no traffic around me nor a parked car for me to head butt.

I changed my route the next day.

Ride safe out there!

Of course a pothole can be deadly, it can throw you over your handlebars and into traffic. If it is deep enough, your front wheel will go in and stop causing an 'endo'. It has happened to me and I did land on the street but luckily no cars were nearby. After a rain, a pothole will fill with water and it looks like a minor puddle, and can easily be missed. So yes please fill the potholes. And spend another 1% again on bike lanes and pedestrian improvements.

Citing Streetsblog as a source is like asking Bernie Madoff for investment advice.

amusingly, up until two years ago that wouldn't have sounded so sarcastic.

Again, JDS, car owners pay an oppressive tax on gas and via tolls. It's seemingly fair that they get pot holes fixed.

Roads do not pay for themselves, and gas taxes, tolls, registration fees, and other taxes on car purchases don't come close to making up the difference.

http://www.uspirg.org/home/rep...

On your taxes, there is no box that says, "I don't own a car or barely drive, so please don't use my tax money for roads." We all chip in regardless of how much we drive, just like we all pay the same amount for garbage pickup whether we put out one bag a week or five.

That's socialism for you!

I was with you until you said "socialism". Everything you pointed out was spot-on.

UNTIL you called it socialism.

Go live in Germany, experience what socialism is.

And NO, socialism is NOT the same as communism.

Dude, I don't think it's socialism. There's a difference between social democracy and socialism.

What I'm saying is that those who criticize mass transit and bikers call them socialists, but see no incongruity between saying that and accepting the billions in subsidies driving receives.

Again, I don't think we are in a socialist system. I'm only using the language of critics.

no one ever points out that the Republicans stand for TOLL BOOTHS on every single road and highway and street.

(How ELSE are ya gonna pay for them? the current way is 100% communism and they won't stand for it!)

(Except for how they worship communism when it's govt-run monopolies like the Military, the Police, the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security, and Corporate Welfare!)

On your taxes, there is no box that says, "I don't own a car or barely drive, so please don't use my tax money for roads." We all chip in regardless of how much we drive, just like we all pay the same amount for garbage pickup whether we put out one bag a week or five.

What? The taxes I mentioned are all excise taxes. Conceivably, you could go through life without paying those directly.


That "statement" had no bias in it whatsoever...should I link to something from Fox News?

Interesting that there's no mention of other transportation tax, the interstate sales tax (Amazon), and any other tax justified by the commerce clause.

These figures fail to include the many costs imposed by highway construction on non-users of the system, including damage to the environment and public health and encouragement of sprawling forms of development that impose major costs on the environment and government finance

That report also takes liberty with the environmental costs it seems. It made me think of whichever company says $100 quad trillion in productivity is lost during March Madness. So let's take this report with a grain of salt. It's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be.

You need roads to get your daily products. How do you think the products get to the store? How does ambulance get you to the hospital? How does police come to rescue you? That's why you pay taxes on it fella.

Drivers pay a lot more, registration (small fee but multiply by a million+), parking meters, inspections, tolls for government properties ($8 to get to NJ?). If you think those come 'close' to making up the difference you are sadly mistaken. It's 10 million+ dollars in revenue, easy.

It's amazing what a textbook example you are of reading what you want to read. I see it in almost every comment you make. You're probably not a dumb guy - are you the College Humor guy? - so I'm wondering why your biases aren't at least hidden behind intelligence.

I'm assuming drivers also eat and buy things, much as pedestrians and cyclists do, occasionally take ambulances, and also need the police to help them every once in awhile. They might even need those services a little more, considering the accident and injury figures for driving. So, assuming that someone who drives a lot does eats three meals a day and all the rest, he's using the roads a lot more than someone who drives only occasionally or not at all, which is all that I was saying.

Even with the millions of drivers paying registration fees, inspections, taxes, etc. that revenue doesn't come close to paying for roads. Everyone's taxes go to making up the difference. Also, I pay the same amount to register my car and get a driver's license no matter how much I use it. I have a car, drive it only occasionally, and paid as much to get a driver's license as you did. But if you drive every day, you're putting more wear and tear on the roads. When we all pay the same amount for something no matter how much we use it, that's socialism.

Some politicians have considered a VMT to tax drivers based on miles traveled, but such free-market pricing of road use never goes over well, especially among free-market conservatives.

You can read the study or make up figures like $10 million. Sounds like a lot, but no where close to the $280 million it will cost to renovate the Brooklyn bridge, especially since there are no tolls on it or any other East River crossing.

Question: Would you mind paying free market prices for mass transit?

I get it. Mass transit doesn't pay for itself either, but I'm not arguing with anyone on that.

But considering that mass transit supporters are often portrayed as socialists and car drivers are supporters of American capitalism and the free-market, it's interesting to note that drivers receive a huge amount of subsidies without complaint.

You can park at a meter in Brooklyn or Queens for 75 cents per hour. That's not a free-market price since an off-street spot, even in an uncovered lot, would likely cost at least $10/hour. On-street parking is highly subsidized as well.

Many people who bike are also car owners. I own a car and paid taxes and fees to do so. Those taxes were not based on how frequently or how far I drive. Many people who bike at least have drivers licenses, which they had to pay for. Even the cost of a drivers license is not enough to pay for the DMV offices needed to issue drivers licenses.

I'm fine with driving, just not fine with people who fall over themselves to argue that car driving is somehow different from all the other social goods our city, state, and federal governments choose to subsidize. We can argue the social merits of having the govt subsidize driving, but the fact that is subsidized way beyond the costs paid by individual drivers is just that. A fact.

This took three minutes to type.

Did you stay up all night to write that?

My point is that the roads are needed by everybody even you don't have a car
you still benefit from them. Just like you pay taxes which go to other areas
of spending

your point is totally correct.

it's like when people don't realize the congestion pricing hoax will be passed onto the little people of nyc.

it won't reduce traffic 1%.

it will just give mikey more money to give Ray Kelly another $23,000 pay raise this year.

Maybe if he types with two fingers on the keyboard like you probably do, or about ten minutes for someone with any facility with typing - quit it with the ad homs.

His point, and mine, is that motorists do not and have never paid their fare share, but still seem to feel that they are entitled to more than their fare share at the expense of more cost-effective, efficient and environmentally sound alternatives.

You would be absolutely shocked to discover how expensive road maintenance becomes without the federal and state governments picking up the costs.

That and you'd also be quite shocked to discover how much your car costs without subsidies stacked on it up the wazoo.

don't forget that the "fiscal conservative" (as every left and right wing paper called him) mayor bloombucks put spent tens of millions to put in bike lanes... then spent tens of millions to REMOVE those bike lanes... then spent tens of millions to put in NEW bike lanes.

I'm not kidding. America has never before seen a politician like Mike Bloomberg.

Can you even name ONE other pol who overthrew term limits laws twice??

we can keep nitpicking and rearranging the deck chairs or we can be productive and mobilize to get this supercrook to RESIGN.

i'll be joining my irish brothers on St. Patty's day with big BLOOMBERG RESIGN placards.

will you be there too?

I thought a lot of Americans wanted more money spent on infrastructure? And the road jobs were a Keynesian way to bring us back into a financial stability. Keynes even said that digging and filling holes was good in such times; so Bloomberg's build and remove and build bike lanes should be praised by many liberal Keynesians, right?

no, it's CAPITALIST SWINE like Republicans who like to waste money.

we liberals only want to fix the infrastructure the GOP destroyed.

case in point: they just announced $500 million to repaint the Brklyn Bridge even though it only costs a few million.

WHY is now costing $500 million?

because the REPUBLICANS (rudy and mike and pataki) STOLE funds from infrastructure to give to the Yankees, The Mets, The Nets, Trump, and all the other rich people.

the bridges then RUSTED so you can no longer repaint them.

you must sandblast them and many other headaches.

and this is only the fault of the mayor and no one else.

(oh alright: he couldn't have done any of it without the press' help)

also, potholes are VERY dangerous to everyone.

when I drive a car in nyc, I must always focus on the SURFACE of the road and must not look at pedestrians and only glance up quickly to see traffic lights.

the mayor simply refuses to repave roads.

and when he has, he just let Verizon, Con Ed, and gang cut them up to drop in some more FIOS for the luxury condos, illegally.

(again, the DNews showed that mayor bloomberg broke that law 27,000 times!)

and del sig just repeats the lie, repeats the lie that it's all nature's fault.

the photo alone is a smoking gun of scandal:

this clown is going to put some asphalt in there, ontop of a little tar. and even if he got a steamroller to pack it down (they rarely do - they use those useless tamping devices that someone got rich off selling us) the first 8 heavy trucks that roll over it will OBLITERATE it.

(it's like fixing the rusted bridges by nailing up some 2 X4s, yet you all continue the lie that these little patching band aid jobs are NOT FRAUDULENT.)

isn't it weird that Mother Nature didn't even make a DENT in roads that are relatively new (and weren't laid by the mob)?

how is it that even the worst winter has zero effect on correctly-paved roads?

go outside, John and look at a smooth road and try to find where mother nature's snow and ice hurt it.

never happened.

what snow and ice do is also get under IDIOTIC ROAD PATCHES that don't work.

stop it. stop spreading the lies FOR them.

A tamper costs a modest amount (its basically a hand tool with a heavy flat metal end) and can be used for literally decades if you keep it up. No machinery, no nothing, no hauling the steam roller out tthere, which really isn't needed in every single case.

Asphalt, even new stuff, starts to crumble because of flow, settling, gravity, grade, moisture..the whole nine yards combined with temperature. Even on properly constructed roads, after a couple seasons of freeze/thaw even miniscule cracks from normal road deck wear and tear will start to amplify...cau...

Wait, why the fuck am I explaining this to you when you're insane, in a sorta kinda entertaining way.

Fuck you for making me type that out.

no, the tamping machines are a joke.

you think 100 PSI can withstand the 3000 psi of any heavy trucks, smashing it over and over and over every day?

this is why they patch the SAME potholes over and over.

meanwhile, we can go outside now and I'll show you potholes that were CORRECTLY patched last year that had no problem handling the ice and snow and rain.

you are being lied to again by these crooks.

also, we know you're wrong about the weather b/c we can see numerous roads around nyc that were NOT cut up by VErizon and Con Ed and have no defects after blizzards, sleet, cold/hot/cold/hot, etc.

only on the rare occasion (when the mob contractors who mikey now admits he employed for half the city's work do the paving) will you see a road that can't handle the weather.

HOW do you think water / snow slips into the asphalt to contract and expand?

it needs a WAY IN, which is why these stupid patch jobs disintegrate instantly if they're not steamrolled with massive pressure.

but just keep calling me insane.

YOU'RE the one who believes everything the govt and press tells you.

he's not the only one that'll be reading it :)

The lack of investment in solid infrastructure over here is absolutely laughable.

There are a huge number of alternative mechanisms to prevent this kind of damage occurring to roads - and the most obvious one that springs to mind is reduce the amount of traffic using it.

Unfortunately all these mechanisms would cost money that conservatives are unwilling to invest, so we wind up spending more on patching things up over time than if we just fixed the problem once and for all.

no.

in fact, it's far cheaper to repave an entire street than to just keep repairing the potholes that Con Ed and Verizon illegally create.

just like it was far cheaper to put chains on the tires of buses and ambulances and plows in the Blizzard but mike thought he could nickel-and-dime it.

it ended up costing us three times as much in the end, and I'm not including the tens of millions we'll end up paying out in lawsuits from the mayor's crimes on this!

why do you think he was scared to death to ever admit he was in bermuda ignoring the city?

That's what I said - the current free-for-all attitude has to stop and upkeep needs to be properly funded and taken seriously, or the way we think about transit in NYC needs to be rethought and altered into something more sustainable.

Hey John do you have ANY data on cyclist deaths caused by riding a bicycle into a pothole?

Ride some 28's over a couple and get back to us.

I have literally thousands of miles riding all types of bikes. Potholes don't exactly jump out at you (like getting doored). Be aware and ride safe. It really isn't that hard... Children do it every day.

When riding in traffic, I have had potholes "jump out at" me. Granted I am not dead, but if I wasn't riding a mountainbike with front shocks (yes, in NYC) it may have been enough to send me flying off my bike and under the wheels of a car. Sometimes a driver that's not paying attention and drifting your way can distract you from a constant search of the endless blacktop in front of your tires. It all depends on how crowded the street is and the quality of light (overcast days can make even large potholes blend into the street).

....and professional racers destroy their 10,000 practice bikes on potholes, too. Because they do jump out at you a little bit if your going fast enough to have any fun.

You've never had to choose between a pothole and a bumper?

Admittedly, i've fallen by less... But I have never heard of anybody claiming death by pothole. It may have happened, but im still waiting for John to beck up his reckless comment with some facts and figures.

...I think maybe he & streetsblog tried to mix two different stories into one.

Or he's suggesting that there's something so evil about pot hole cleanup he doesn't even have to tell us why we should be outraged.

millions of thank yous for linking me to the very amazing DOT Pothole Tumblr!

That bike lane budget must be for NEW bike lanes. Bike lanes in many areas are part of the road and have been there for years, so I'm sure some of that $190 M budget is going towards the preexisting bike lanes.

Yes, I'm sure the two lines of paint where bike lanes are part of the road adds a huge amount to the street budget.