County to consider bike license fee

A bicyclist waits for traffic at Mill Plain Boulevard and Fort Vancouver Way earlier this year. Clark County commissioners are considering a license fee for bicycles outside city limits. (Files/The Columbian)

Saying they're short on cash for new bike lanes and trails, Clark County's commissioners said Wednesday that they're willing to consider a charge for licensing bicycles outside city limits.

"As a bicyclist, I would pay a licensing fee if I had better trail access," Commissioner Steve Stuart said in a work session on bicycle and pedestrian routes in the county. "We license our dogs. You license your car. Why wouldn't you license your bikes?"

Commissioners Marc Boldt and Tom Mielke agreed, asking to set up a new work session on the issue.

"It's a good funding source," Boldt said.

If enacted, the fee would be the only such fee in the county — possibly, several planners said, in the whole Northwest.
Later Wednesday, Stuart said he wasn't sure whether a fee could be made mandatory, or how high it'd be.

"For my dogs, I think it's $16 a year," Stuart said. "I can't imagine even suggesting something higher than that. And I imagine something significantly lower."

Stuart said any fee revenue would go toward threading bike lanes and paths through neighborhoods that were built before the county started including bike lanes on all major streets.

City and county planners said they have no idea how many bicycles are in Clark County or its cities, or how many people might be expected to comply with a mandatory regulation.

If half of the 210,000 people outside Clark County's cities owned a single bicycle, and half of those people paid $10 annually, the county would bring in $525,000 a year, minus the program's costs.

One mile of new roadside bicycle lane costs $232,000 per mile for pavement alone, according to a 2008 county estimate.

If the county also needs to buy land along the road, that cost can rise sharply.

Stuart, a Democrat, said he's just doing his best to find money for bike lanes.

"This was a page right out of the Republican playbook," he said. "And I work with two Republicans. Therefore I look at this as a possibility to get these paths built and get two votes."

Stuart wasn't sure if enforcement might work.

"Certainly, we're not going to be sending sheriff's deputies out there to check bicycle licenses," he said.

Voluntary system?

Jennifer Campos, a bicycle specialist in Vancouver's planning department, said she didn't know of any city or county in Washington or Oregon that charges a fee for bicycle licenses.

"It's something that I think was fairly common to do in the '70s, but it's just not something that's really done anymore," Campos said.

This spring, Oregon's Legislature considered, then dropped, a proposal to require bicyclists to pay a $54 annual fee that would pay for transportation.

Jonathan Maus, who covers local bicycle culture at bikeportland.org, said Wednesday that he doubts mandatory programs are likely to raise enough money to pay for their enforcement.

But he said a voluntary system might be popular.
"I think most people would opt to pay if they knew it would go into a fund that would go to pay for bike stuff," Maus said.

As local governments run low on transportation money, he predicted, more and more will be drawn to bike fees.

"My hunch would be that we're going to hear more about these things," Maus said.