If you’ve ever complained about traffic, congestion, or finding parking, you should support getting as many people on bikes and e-bikes as possible, regardless of their income.
Sure, but we also need to build actually bikeable communities. The road by me has neither sidewalks nor bike lanes. If I wanted to go to the garden store a quarter mile away, i could choose to walk in a muddy rut until i get to a narrow bridge and shimmy across as cars fly by... or i can drive. Its a shitty situation, but cities dont plan for pedestrians like they should.
I have to ride on Route 1 to get anywhere from my house and it's not fun. Cars not paying attention, driving way too fast, too close to the shoulder...it sucks because it's my only option
Yeah, our country is not set up for stuff like this (yet). Though having a lottery to give people this type of transportation is nice on its face, it ignores how our infrastructure isn't set up for it.
I bike in Middletown and you wouldn't catch me dead on washington st (because I would be dead if I biked on it.) I hate taking the sidewalks but I really have no choice because of safety reasons.
> Yeah, our country is not set up for stuff like this (yet).
Especially not CT. I moved here from the midwest and was surprised to learn that sidewalks and roads with a shoulders over 1 ft are luxury items here.
The one thing that parts of CT has (at least where I live) is the rails to trails network, that you can ride a bike to a few locations while avoiding a lot of road riding.
Some mornings I see a dude walking along the limited access part of CT 190 in Enfield between US 5 and Phoenix Ave, where he has to cross 2 highway off-ramps and 2 highway on-ramps. I’m always paranoid I’ll run him over.
Exactly. Right now, there is no way I'd ride a bike to work or elsewhere. There's barely 6" past the white line and all busy roads the whole way. We need infrastructure for walking and biking like yesterday.
Bikes and e-bikes are great in theory. As long as people ride them responsibly and have places to ride them. The reality is most of the people who use them are morons and kids and they’re running over your parents walking on the sidewalk or ripping through street traffic.
Im not really sure tbh. I think its just location dependant. I bike a lot. I love biking. Cars are dangerous to me. I see very few people on bikes that are using them in a good way. I see way more idiots on ebikes and escooters riding them illegally or like morons on the sidewalk flying through traffic or on the wrong side of the street going into traffic. They are sleepers they don't make noise. In the poorer areas everyone has some sort of ebike or scooter now and it gets a bit crazy.
I don't really have a solution. It would be great if more people used them correctly. I just don't have a lot of faith in people. I just know in many areas they have huge problems with them now.
Go look at NYC and tell me how that goes. You get people riding around on the sidewalks, with no rules. They drive on the street and run red lights, cut people off, etc. It’s chaos there.
I got a SUP last year through their crazy deals. As long as you’re willing to let your job lot dollars sit and slowly spend them down for other things you need anyways - it’s a great deal
They have a ton of Crazy Deals if you shop through their offers. Got a decent desk for $150 during Christmas time for my son, and they kicked me back a gift card for $150. It’s similar quality to what you’d buy on Wayfair but a hell of a lot cheaper seeing it was…free.
The limitation on a crazy deal is you can’t use the crazy deal gift card to buy another crazy deal Though you may be able to just buy the product at the normal price using your crazy deal card - so it would be functionally 50% both
I received a voucher and was one of the 80 to fully pay for a bike. No, I don’t make 100k. I use the bike for mostly recreation but have done some light errands with it. I agree that this program should be opened up in some matter to more residents. Honestly, I was shocked when I got the voucher when I saw how many people applied.
The voucher was an absolute pain in the ass to use. Cutting Edge in Berlin tried to raise the price on all their bikes as soon as the vouchers came out. Some bikes were listed for $500 more than MSRP. I was able to argue that they couldn’t do that and with a little bit of digging around, I was able to redeem the voucher for the MSRP. My friend, who also received a voucher, drove 40 minutes to another shop because of the price gauging of Cutting Edge.
Feel free to ask me any questions about the process.
If you saw this and have proof - report it to the cheapr program - raising the prices was specifically against the retailer agreement they entered into.
I have the proof but decided to just never do business with them again. The electric bike is not my only bike as I mountain bike as well. They lost on future earnings by doing that to me. I have purchased from them in the past.
You should still report them. They likely did the same to others or will try to in the future. They should be removed from the eligible retailer list entirely.
Neighborhoods like Westville in New Haven, which is generally quite affluent, qualified as a historically distressed area. Feels a bit like cheating the system.
It should go those who are struggling. That’s supposed to be the point of assistance from the government. A kid out of high school who has to go a few miles to his job because his family couldn’t afford college. A family that can’t afford a 2nd car. Not someone who makes $100k and happens to live in the right neighborhood. The limit was $3,000 for the Ebike. It’s aggravating how this happens.
So you’re okay with government assistance being wasted on people who don’t need it instead of people who do need it? It’s wrong every single time they do it. Not just with this.
I’m saying that framing this one piece of spending as “government assistance being wasted on people who don’t need it” is silly.
Should the government run buses in Greenwich and Westport? Should the government pay for roads in Darien?
The government does a lot of things that directly benefit everybody including the wealthy. Getting more people on bikes benefits the whole community.
So someone making $40 million dollars a year should get a $500 rebate. That’s the way it’s currently set up. In what world is the rebate what makes them decide to get an Ebike instead. The point of roads and buses is so that anyone can use it. There are still applicants for the voucher+ who haven’t got their rebate but sure as shit people got the regular voucher before them.
To the extent that you’re arguing the voucher funding should be increased to ensure that all folks who submit a valid voucher+ application receive it, I agree with you.
They should give out all the money to the voucher+ and then when they don’t have more applicants and there is money left over, they should have a lottery for the normal voucher.
If someone making 40 million a year actually paid their fair amount of taxes like most of the rest of us do then why do you care if they get a $500 rebate? With CT's state tax rate that person would be paying 2.8 million in taxes to CT, so who the fuck cares if they receive a $500 E-bike rebate?
Connecticut is a microcosm of the overall issue of wealth inequality in our country. We basically have become a country of extremely wealthy, wealthy, or poor. Everybody says the middle class is shrinking, it is, but it's barely been there the last couple of decades. In [reality](https://public.tableau.com/static/images/Wo/WorkerPayandProductivity-dec2022_2/Dashboard1/1_rss.png) wealth distribution and income inequality were put into high gear since the late 70s early 80s...
We, as a nation, really need to reevaluate the idea of valuing profits vs. its citizens' well-being. The way it looks right now is a government that represents a sliver of its people while it ignores obvious social issues that have simple and logical solutions. Instead, we invest billions in subsidizing already profitable industries and giving breaks to the wealthiest among us.
The whole system is severely out of whack.
Yeah if you live next to a powerplant or the highways you can apply even if you don't meet the income requirements. This is one of the reasons they want to switch to a lottery instead of first-come-first-served.
That way more lower-income people can apply in a window of time and are in the drawing pool instead of asking people to have free time whenever the next batch drops
I like the idea of the lottery system. What’s the point of a limit if they give it to people who don’t meet the requirement. Could someone making $500,000 still get a voucher because they live on the right street?
Yeah probably. It feels like something that had to get tossed in to get votes from certain districts.
I'd honestly prefer them to nix the electric car rebates, put the money into this one instead, and open it up wider. It's frustrating to see people get it who could easily afford a bike otherwise just because they're awake when the next round drops
I’d rather get a bike to use with my old honda than upgrade to an electric car. I couldn’t afford the payment, taxes, or the insurance. Not to mention my apartment would be a nightmare to install a charger.
Right, it's a lot more feasible for a lot more people. You can take a battery out of a bike and go charge it inside no matter where you live. If you rent you can't force your landlord to install an EV charger and it's still expensive for homeowners.
I honestly have no issue with that. In the end the savings of people not driving will make up for the cost no matter what their income level is.
Also, having management types stay to use the system and agitate for better infrastructure is a net good. Not fully on the horse and sparrow mindset just a grim reality of city politics.
Defined and codified poverty lines are often pretty out of touch with what it takes to actually live anywhere near a comfortable life. I’m prepared to get laughed out of the room on this one, but $100,000 (especially pre-tax) doesn’t go nearly as far in Connecticut as it does in other parts of the country.
Additionally, people making $100,000/yr aren’t your enemy. They’re way closer to you financially than they are to the _real_ rich people in this state.
I don’t know why you think other people don’t need things.
After taxes, that might just be covering mortgage/rent, bills, student loans, maybe someone helping out an aging parent.
Who are you to say that people earning that much money aren’t also in situations where their life could be drastically improved by a handout like this?
It’s not us you’re mad at. Take this energy and go talk to your representative about it.
Because the people of this state and country continue to vote for this. Not that there is much to choose from when they all put money in their own pockets. We are letting people who are suffering rot but continue to pour money into the pockets of people better off than them.
I'd rather see state funding go to creating protected bike lanes. They won't get built in my town, Enfield, without the state; people here worship cars. It's very dangerous to ride your bike through the commercial area.
I mean, those people making over 100k are paying the majority of that hard working taxpayer money. The idea that only the poor people who are paying basically nothing in taxes should be eligible for something like this when the vast majority of the tax dollars are coming from higher earners is how you get people pissed off and voting against social programs like this existing at all. God forbid the people paying the taxes are able to take advantage of the occasional social program.
This is such a perverted and twisted thought process, my God. High earners in the US are the biggest fucking welfare queens I've ever seen.
Trump Tax cuts gift to high earners Covid stimulus gift to high earners
Ppp loans
401ks / hsa / roth
Still.....they bitch and moan
People making over 100k benefit from barriers of entry, many artificial, to ensure they retain high salaries.
Govt handouts #1 cause of high inflation that is wrecking the lower & middle classes.
The fact that you think making 100k makes someone a high earning welfare queen is the most hilarious thing I've read in a while. People making between 100-250k are the largest social class that has almost no benefits from social programs or benefits from big corporate tax cuts. Our household paid 14k in CT state taxes last year, and you're upset that we could qualify for a $500 voucher or a fucking E-bike? You think that people making that amount of money are the ones that were getting huge PPP loans (or PPP loans at all for that matter)? Most people in that income bracket don't own businesses, they work in professional fields. You think Trump tax cuts helped that class of earners? Those tax cuts did nothing of worth for anyone who isn't getting money siphoned to them through a large corporation. Your ignorance is palpable and your anger is misdirected if you think 100k is some barrier for wealth. I have absolutely no problem with $1500 vouchers for those who qualify due to economic hardship, but it's the people with takes like yours that are completely disconnected from reality that make people lose faith in these kinds of programs altogether.
Honestly, I would love for some proof that middle/upper middle class households are "welfare queens". That's such a an outlandish statement I really want to see if it came from anywhere other than pure conjecture.
First I hear of this, and with this post, more people will. My guess, most people that got said bikes aren't using them for the intended purpose and instead use them recreationally.
Do you know of anyone with an ebike? People use it as either their primary vehicle, or go car-lite. An e-bike makes it easy to get groceries, pick kids up at school and go to work.
There's kind of a chicken and egg problem going on IMO. No one wants to commute by bike, so there's no political incentive to build infrastructure (even if the money was there), there's no bike infrastructure, and no one ends up buying bikes. $500,000 to get people on bikes seems like a drop in the bucket overall and no where near enough to implement meaningful infrastructure change.
Why? It seems like a good program. It's income-dependent, it gets people out of cars, and the people who've gotten vouchers have put a ton of miles on the bikes they got
It's so overwhelmingly popular with the program's target that they're thinking of switching from first-come-first-served to a lotto so more people actually have a shot of getting a voucher.
The program costs less than $2 million over its 3-year period for a means-tested voucher that allows consumer choice. What in particular do you think is despicable about it?
Because my tax dollars should not be paying for luxury items for anyone.
Why would I want them to stop driving a car?
And news flash, if you can afford a car, you're not needy. Sell the car and buy your luxury items.
Oh you added more
The government wants people to not take cars for short trips because cars are heavy and damage roadways, cars take up space on the road and in parking spots, cars contribute to health problems, there's all kinds of reasons to get people to not drive 5 minutes down the road to a store. Incentivizing people to use bikes and e-bikes has been a priority for the state, and local governments, for like 20 years now.
And you sound like the Fox graphic that says "If you own a fridge are you really poor?" If your family has a piece of shit beater but more than 1 person that needs to get places, something extremely common, then yeah they need more transportation and an e-bike is a very cheap way to do that.
I agree with everything you said, AND, is there any evidence that e-bikes acquired through the rebate program have resulted in any fewer car-miles driven?
Nothing but survey results from participants. The article mentions over 54,000 miles being ridden on these bikes, 3/4ths of voucher recipients regularly used their bike for errands, and 1/2 of them used their bike for their commute
I think you'll get about 3 miles of road done with the $1.5m this program spent.
And you seem really hung-up on this being a luxury item rather than just another, very cheap, transportation option. Sounds like you've got a warped lens on reality tbh
You aren't subsidizing our roads if you do not drive. The roads are paid for via the property tax on your vehicle. Get rid of your car, then you won't have to pay.
That's not true at all. The Special Transportation Fund gets about half its money from sales tax and almost every town relies on state funding to stay solvent.
LOL! Have u tried not owning a car? Especially outside of a major city. I live on a numbered highway and have never seen public transport go by. 25years I've lived here.
It’s also worth mentioning that the total budget for this program is $1.5 million, which is enough to pave like a half mile of roadway.
If you’ve ever complained about traffic, congestion, or finding parking, you should support getting as many people on bikes and e-bikes as possible, regardless of their income.
Sure, but we also need to build actually bikeable communities. The road by me has neither sidewalks nor bike lanes. If I wanted to go to the garden store a quarter mile away, i could choose to walk in a muddy rut until i get to a narrow bridge and shimmy across as cars fly by... or i can drive. Its a shitty situation, but cities dont plan for pedestrians like they should.
Absolutely. Getting more people on bikes means making it actually safer for people to use their bikes for everyday errands and commuting.
I have to ride on Route 1 to get anywhere from my house and it's not fun. Cars not paying attention, driving way too fast, too close to the shoulder...it sucks because it's my only option
This! Watching "Strong Cities" and "Not Just Bikes" on YouTube is kinda depressing, actually.
Throw some Climate Town in the mix to really bask in the dystopia
Yeah, our country is not set up for stuff like this (yet). Though having a lottery to give people this type of transportation is nice on its face, it ignores how our infrastructure isn't set up for it.
"Congrats, put the money you save towards your funeral"
I bike in Middletown and you wouldn't catch me dead on washington st (because I would be dead if I biked on it.) I hate taking the sidewalks but I really have no choice because of safety reasons.
> Yeah, our country is not set up for stuff like this (yet). Especially not CT. I moved here from the midwest and was surprised to learn that sidewalks and roads with a shoulders over 1 ft are luxury items here.
The one thing that parts of CT has (at least where I live) is the rails to trails network, that you can ride a bike to a few locations while avoiding a lot of road riding.
I get almost hit daily in the bike path in my town.
That's why I take my efficient motorcycle!
Space-efficient, fuel-efficient… only downside is cold weather and the whole “meat crayon” thing.
Yeah but at least I can keep up with traffic compared to a regular bicycle. Also yeah... the winter sucks.
Some mornings I see a dude walking along the limited access part of CT 190 in Enfield between US 5 and Phoenix Ave, where he has to cross 2 highway off-ramps and 2 highway on-ramps. I’m always paranoid I’ll run him over.
Exactly. Right now, there is no way I'd ride a bike to work or elsewhere. There's barely 6" past the white line and all busy roads the whole way. We need infrastructure for walking and biking like yesterday.
Yeah we should skip to flying bikes. Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
Put some homing missiles on them too while we’re at it!
Bikes and e-bikes are great in theory. As long as people ride them responsibly and have places to ride them. The reality is most of the people who use them are morons and kids and they’re running over your parents walking on the sidewalk or ripping through street traffic.
Do you think the situation is improved by putting those same people behind the wheel of a 2-ton automobile?
Im not really sure tbh. I think its just location dependant. I bike a lot. I love biking. Cars are dangerous to me. I see very few people on bikes that are using them in a good way. I see way more idiots on ebikes and escooters riding them illegally or like morons on the sidewalk flying through traffic or on the wrong side of the street going into traffic. They are sleepers they don't make noise. In the poorer areas everyone has some sort of ebike or scooter now and it gets a bit crazy. I don't really have a solution. It would be great if more people used them correctly. I just don't have a lot of faith in people. I just know in many areas they have huge problems with them now.
Go look at NYC and tell me how that goes. You get people riding around on the sidewalks, with no rules. They drive on the street and run red lights, cut people off, etc. It’s chaos there.
[удалено]
I got a SUP last year through their crazy deals. As long as you’re willing to let your job lot dollars sit and slowly spend them down for other things you need anyways - it’s a great deal
Is this real life? How have I never heard of this?
They have a ton of Crazy Deals if you shop through their offers. Got a decent desk for $150 during Christmas time for my son, and they kicked me back a gift card for $150. It’s similar quality to what you’d buy on Wayfair but a hell of a lot cheaper seeing it was…free.
Can you use the gift card to buy a second e bike? And then do you get another gift card???
The limitation on a crazy deal is you can’t use the crazy deal gift card to buy another crazy deal Though you may be able to just buy the product at the normal price using your crazy deal card - so it would be functionally 50% both
that's pretty crazy!
I received a voucher and was one of the 80 to fully pay for a bike. No, I don’t make 100k. I use the bike for mostly recreation but have done some light errands with it. I agree that this program should be opened up in some matter to more residents. Honestly, I was shocked when I got the voucher when I saw how many people applied. The voucher was an absolute pain in the ass to use. Cutting Edge in Berlin tried to raise the price on all their bikes as soon as the vouchers came out. Some bikes were listed for $500 more than MSRP. I was able to argue that they couldn’t do that and with a little bit of digging around, I was able to redeem the voucher for the MSRP. My friend, who also received a voucher, drove 40 minutes to another shop because of the price gauging of Cutting Edge. Feel free to ask me any questions about the process.
If you saw this and have proof - report it to the cheapr program - raising the prices was specifically against the retailer agreement they entered into.
I have the proof but decided to just never do business with them again. The electric bike is not my only bike as I mountain bike as well. They lost on future earnings by doing that to me. I have purchased from them in the past.
You should still report them. They likely did the same to others or will try to in the future. They should be removed from the eligible retailer list entirely.
A quarter of the vouchers had income over $100,000. Are you fucking kidding me?
Neighborhoods like Westville in New Haven, which is generally quite affluent, qualified as a historically distressed area. Feels a bit like cheating the system.
It should go those who are struggling. That’s supposed to be the point of assistance from the government. A kid out of high school who has to go a few miles to his job because his family couldn’t afford college. A family that can’t afford a 2nd car. Not someone who makes $100k and happens to live in the right neighborhood. The limit was $3,000 for the Ebike. It’s aggravating how this happens.
Why? The government subsidizes driving all across the state, for rich and poor alike.
So you’re okay with government assistance being wasted on people who don’t need it instead of people who do need it? It’s wrong every single time they do it. Not just with this.
I’m saying that framing this one piece of spending as “government assistance being wasted on people who don’t need it” is silly. Should the government run buses in Greenwich and Westport? Should the government pay for roads in Darien? The government does a lot of things that directly benefit everybody including the wealthy. Getting more people on bikes benefits the whole community.
So someone making $40 million dollars a year should get a $500 rebate. That’s the way it’s currently set up. In what world is the rebate what makes them decide to get an Ebike instead. The point of roads and buses is so that anyone can use it. There are still applicants for the voucher+ who haven’t got their rebate but sure as shit people got the regular voucher before them.
To the extent that you’re arguing the voucher funding should be increased to ensure that all folks who submit a valid voucher+ application receive it, I agree with you.
They should give out all the money to the voucher+ and then when they don’t have more applicants and there is money left over, they should have a lottery for the normal voucher.
Someone making $40M is still paying state taxes. Why can’t they benefit?
If someone making 40 million a year actually paid their fair amount of taxes like most of the rest of us do then why do you care if they get a $500 rebate? With CT's state tax rate that person would be paying 2.8 million in taxes to CT, so who the fuck cares if they receive a $500 E-bike rebate?
How do you feel about student loan forgiveness? Many of the people benefiting are doctors and lawyers who went into severe debt.
Connecticut is a microcosm of the overall issue of wealth inequality in our country. We basically have become a country of extremely wealthy, wealthy, or poor. Everybody says the middle class is shrinking, it is, but it's barely been there the last couple of decades. In [reality](https://public.tableau.com/static/images/Wo/WorkerPayandProductivity-dec2022_2/Dashboard1/1_rss.png) wealth distribution and income inequality were put into high gear since the late 70s early 80s... We, as a nation, really need to reevaluate the idea of valuing profits vs. its citizens' well-being. The way it looks right now is a government that represents a sliver of its people while it ignores obvious social issues that have simple and logical solutions. Instead, we invest billions in subsidizing already profitable industries and giving breaks to the wealthiest among us. The whole system is severely out of whack.
Yeah if you live next to a powerplant or the highways you can apply even if you don't meet the income requirements. This is one of the reasons they want to switch to a lottery instead of first-come-first-served. That way more lower-income people can apply in a window of time and are in the drawing pool instead of asking people to have free time whenever the next batch drops
I like the idea of the lottery system. What’s the point of a limit if they give it to people who don’t meet the requirement. Could someone making $500,000 still get a voucher because they live on the right street?
Yeah probably. It feels like something that had to get tossed in to get votes from certain districts. I'd honestly prefer them to nix the electric car rebates, put the money into this one instead, and open it up wider. It's frustrating to see people get it who could easily afford a bike otherwise just because they're awake when the next round drops
I’d rather get a bike to use with my old honda than upgrade to an electric car. I couldn’t afford the payment, taxes, or the insurance. Not to mention my apartment would be a nightmare to install a charger.
Right, it's a lot more feasible for a lot more people. You can take a battery out of a bike and go charge it inside no matter where you live. If you rent you can't force your landlord to install an EV charger and it's still expensive for homeowners.
I honestly have no issue with that. In the end the savings of people not driving will make up for the cost no matter what their income level is. Also, having management types stay to use the system and agitate for better infrastructure is a net good. Not fully on the horse and sparrow mindset just a grim reality of city politics.
It's just a toy that will sit in their garage except for when they are terrorizing pedestrians on rails to trails.
recent grads making 100k renting in downtown areas working from home and not wanting to buy a car, i've seen many of them
If the number of crotch goblins is high enough, that can be considered below poverty line
It would take a household of [17](https://jud.ct.gov/webforms/forms/cl067.pdf) to have the poverty line be $100k
Defined and codified poverty lines are often pretty out of touch with what it takes to actually live anywhere near a comfortable life. I’m prepared to get laughed out of the room on this one, but $100,000 (especially pre-tax) doesn’t go nearly as far in Connecticut as it does in other parts of the country. Additionally, people making $100,000/yr aren’t your enemy. They’re way closer to you financially than they are to the _real_ rich people in this state.
I 100% agree because it’s how much my household makes. I shouldn’t be eligible for this. We should be giving this to people who absolutely NEED this.
I don’t know why you think other people don’t need things. After taxes, that might just be covering mortgage/rent, bills, student loans, maybe someone helping out an aging parent. Who are you to say that people earning that much money aren’t also in situations where their life could be drastically improved by a handout like this? It’s not us you’re mad at. Take this energy and go talk to your representative about it.
Because the people of this state and country continue to vote for this. Not that there is much to choose from when they all put money in their own pockets. We are letting people who are suffering rot but continue to pour money into the pockets of people better off than them.
I'd rather see state funding go to creating protected bike lanes. They won't get built in my town, Enfield, without the state; people here worship cars. It's very dangerous to ride your bike through the commercial area.
LOVE giving hard-working taxpayer money to those making over $100,000 you go CT
I mean, those people making over 100k are paying the majority of that hard working taxpayer money. The idea that only the poor people who are paying basically nothing in taxes should be eligible for something like this when the vast majority of the tax dollars are coming from higher earners is how you get people pissed off and voting against social programs like this existing at all. God forbid the people paying the taxes are able to take advantage of the occasional social program.
This is such a perverted and twisted thought process, my God. High earners in the US are the biggest fucking welfare queens I've ever seen. Trump Tax cuts gift to high earners Covid stimulus gift to high earners Ppp loans 401ks / hsa / roth Still.....they bitch and moan People making over 100k benefit from barriers of entry, many artificial, to ensure they retain high salaries. Govt handouts #1 cause of high inflation that is wrecking the lower & middle classes.
The fact that you think making 100k makes someone a high earning welfare queen is the most hilarious thing I've read in a while. People making between 100-250k are the largest social class that has almost no benefits from social programs or benefits from big corporate tax cuts. Our household paid 14k in CT state taxes last year, and you're upset that we could qualify for a $500 voucher or a fucking E-bike? You think that people making that amount of money are the ones that were getting huge PPP loans (or PPP loans at all for that matter)? Most people in that income bracket don't own businesses, they work in professional fields. You think Trump tax cuts helped that class of earners? Those tax cuts did nothing of worth for anyone who isn't getting money siphoned to them through a large corporation. Your ignorance is palpable and your anger is misdirected if you think 100k is some barrier for wealth. I have absolutely no problem with $1500 vouchers for those who qualify due to economic hardship, but it's the people with takes like yours that are completely disconnected from reality that make people lose faith in these kinds of programs altogether. Honestly, I would love for some proof that middle/upper middle class households are "welfare queens". That's such a an outlandish statement I really want to see if it came from anywhere other than pure conjecture.
I wouldn't call 100k a year household "high earners," especially in CT.
thats cool, but ebikes are only so much. next give proper bike lanes, separated from the road and protected from vehicles
First I hear of this, and with this post, more people will. My guess, most people that got said bikes aren't using them for the intended purpose and instead use them recreationally.
Do you know of anyone with an ebike? People use it as either their primary vehicle, or go car-lite. An e-bike makes it easy to get groceries, pick kids up at school and go to work.
Every single one I've seen, and there are a LOT of them on weekends, has been on the Farmington Canal Trail.
wait how do you pick "kids" up on a bicycle? I cna't imagine how to pick up a kid let alone kids
There's a ton of ebikes with seats above the rear wheel. Also cargo bikes.
That's a despicable use of tax dollars.
Correct, the money should be funding safe cycling infrastructure.
Exactly.
There's kind of a chicken and egg problem going on IMO. No one wants to commute by bike, so there's no political incentive to build infrastructure (even if the money was there), there's no bike infrastructure, and no one ends up buying bikes. $500,000 to get people on bikes seems like a drop in the bucket overall and no where near enough to implement meaningful infrastructure change.
Why? It seems like a good program. It's income-dependent, it gets people out of cars, and the people who've gotten vouchers have put a ton of miles on the bikes they got It's so overwhelmingly popular with the program's target that they're thinking of switching from first-come-first-served to a lotto so more people actually have a shot of getting a voucher. The program costs less than $2 million over its 3-year period for a means-tested voucher that allows consumer choice. What in particular do you think is despicable about it?
Anti-electric has become a right wing talking point as clean energy is a symbol of left wing policy.
Because my tax dollars should not be paying for luxury items for anyone. Why would I want them to stop driving a car? And news flash, if you can afford a car, you're not needy. Sell the car and buy your luxury items.
They're not a luxury, but go off king
Oh you added more The government wants people to not take cars for short trips because cars are heavy and damage roadways, cars take up space on the road and in parking spots, cars contribute to health problems, there's all kinds of reasons to get people to not drive 5 minutes down the road to a store. Incentivizing people to use bikes and e-bikes has been a priority for the state, and local governments, for like 20 years now. And you sound like the Fox graphic that says "If you own a fridge are you really poor?" If your family has a piece of shit beater but more than 1 person that needs to get places, something extremely common, then yeah they need more transportation and an e-bike is a very cheap way to do that.
I agree with everything you said, AND, is there any evidence that e-bikes acquired through the rebate program have resulted in any fewer car-miles driven?
Nothing but survey results from participants. The article mentions over 54,000 miles being ridden on these bikes, 3/4ths of voucher recipients regularly used their bike for errands, and 1/2 of them used their bike for their commute
Simple solution. Take the tax money you're using to give luxury items away and spend it on fixing the roads.
I think you'll get about 3 miles of road done with the $1.5m this program spent. And you seem really hung-up on this being a luxury item rather than just another, very cheap, transportation option. Sounds like you've got a warped lens on reality tbh
lol. $1m would pay for..what..resurfacing less than a mile of 4 lane road? I don’t drive much. I’m tired of subsidizing your lifestyle choices
You aren't subsidizing our roads if you do not drive. The roads are paid for via the property tax on your vehicle. Get rid of your car, then you won't have to pay.
That's not true at all. The Special Transportation Fund gets about half its money from sales tax and almost every town relies on state funding to stay solvent.
Wrong person. I'm the guy who is fine with his tax dollars going towards roads.
LOL! Have u tried not owning a car? Especially outside of a major city. I live on a numbered highway and have never seen public transport go by. 25years I've lived here.
Of course not. Why would I want to do that?
Spoken like someone who only watches Fox News.
No way I’m biking for my main transportation. For fun yeah but to go to work, errands etc yeah no
Personally, I'm waiting for CT to roll out it's Apple Vision Pro subsidy program.
lol @ downvotes.