> More importantly, just because one particular public resource is reserved for a particular purpose doesn't make it "not public" nor do we expect users to pay for it. For example, public schools are still "public" and we don't make families pay to send their kids there, instead the whole public pays whether or not they use those schools.
Public resources should be for public benefit. Sometimes there's a legitimate public interest in something that only a subset of the population uses directly - e.g. there's a general public interest in having children raised well, it's something that even people without children benefit from. When public money is spent on something that mostly benefits the rich or the middle-class, pointed questions are and should be asked about that.
And I don't think there's any general principle that public resources are always free to use. Public transport is generally charged for. Publicly funded museums and art galleries are free in some cities but not in others. Public sports facilities are almost always paid, at least for private individuals to use (they might be used for free by a municipal team or club). Even stuff like getting a copy of your tax records often costs money.
> But are they happy to pay for use of the bike lanes like you're proposing cars do for use of street parking? The point is that no one wants to pay to use a public resource.
It seems a little unfair to compare drivers' parking to cyclists' road use. Where I live there's virtually no street parking (for bikes or cars), everyone pays for parking, and no-one pays for road use (except for expressways). If we were talking about replacing paid car parking with free bike parking then I can see how that might be seen as unfair, but that's not the issue AIUI.
> I'm not following your point about incentives--it's not like public transit users pay more during rush hour.
Public transit does cost more during rush hour in many places. More to the point, congested lines or lines that use a lot of expensive land tend to cost more, whereas there's no equivalent for roads.
> And drivers could pay more to use the city center roads ("congestion tax"), but that's generally considered regressive because it effectively reserves city center driving for people who can afford the congestion tax.
Right, and this I think is the real issue; people see attempts to make drivers pay their fair share as regressive because they assume driving as the default. Whereas at least in the city, being able to afford a car at all puts you well above the bottom.