Tax the Bikes!

Speculation here and elsewhere is becoming reality....or an attempt is being made:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel's vision of Chicago as a bike-friendly metropolis found itself in the cross hairs of an alderman's proposal for a $25 bike tax Wednesday.
  
  South Side Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, floated a plan to charge bike owners an annual $25 registration fee as a way to raise millions of dollars next year and provide an alternative to the mayor's proposal to hike cable television taxes to bring in about $9 million. Dowell also said she wants to require bikers to take a "rules of the road" safety class.
  
  Emanuel, who this month led a bicycle tour of the Logan Square neighborhood as part of Chicago Ideas Week, said he would look at Dowell's plan. But he then linked his pro-cyclist agenda with recent success in drawing technology firms to the city, and essentially laid out why he almost certainly won't support the idea.

Once the door has been opened though.....

This idea will percolate and they'll figure out some way to make up the fall off in gas taxes and fines.