"The idea that people riding bikes don’t pay for the roads is pervasive, and completely untrue."

Because Easter is the perfect sort of day for myth-busting.

The Free Rider Myth – Who Really Pays for the Roads?, by Elly Blue (Momentum Mag)

... The idea that roads are funded by user fees paid by people who drive is one of the great myths that buttresses our entire way of life. While the veneer on that myth has been crumbling for some time, we have only recently been forced to begin to look hard at it. And the difference between riding a bicycle and driving a car is surprisingly vast – but not in the way most of us imagine.

What if I told you that by driving a car you become a freeloader, a drain on the economy? That people who bicycle instead are subsidizing a road system that they are largely not welcome on? In order to break even on the cost of roads and pay for every driver who uses them each year, we would need 54% of commuters using a bicycle as their sole means of transportation.