When the California Transportation Commission was in a town a few weeks ago, Commissioner Ghielmetti from Southern California asked during the session and again afterward if trail advocate Jen Rice had considered user fees for active transportation users, particularly bicyclists.  Being the over-acheiver she is, Jen wasn't satisfied with her answer at the meeting, so she did some additional research and came up with this synopsis of how bicycling infrastructure funding fits in with transportation funding in general:

• Most cyclists also own vehicles and pay gas taxes.
• According to the FHWA, 92% of the funds for local roads (those most used by cyclists) come from property, income, and sales taxes, which are paid by bicyclists as much as anyone else.
• FHWA calculates that 8% of federal highway funds come the general fund, so even a bicyclist who owns no car contributes to federal highway funds, too.
• Current U.S. road user revenues (fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and road tolls) only finance about two-thirds of roadway expenditures – a growing portion of roadway funding comes from general taxes (Wach, 2003; Litman, 2006).
• A May 2008 study by UC Davis’ Institute for Transportation Studies estimated that “the total ‘tax subsidy’ to motor-vehicle users in the US may be in the range of $19–64 billion per year, or $0.11–0.37 per gallon of motor fuel.” Overall, fuel taxes represent about 47 percent of total current highway revenues (excluding bond sales) for State transportation agencies, so States already rely on funding from sources other than the fuel tax to finance their highway programs (National Surface Transportation Policy & Revenue Study Commission, 2007).
• Bicycles have a very low impact on the roadway.  One study found that bicycles impose about 0.2 cents per mile in roadway costs, which comes from the general tax fund. Motor vehicles impose an average of 3.9 cents per mile in roadway costs, while paying an average of 2.5 cents per mile in user charges such as fuel taxes and motor vehicle registration fees, so the difference--1.4 cents per mile--comes from the general tax fund. Both bicycle and motor vehicle road use is subsidized from general tax revenue, which is fair, since both bicyclists and motorists pay into the general tax fund.
• Per my point about the extensive 'ripple effect' of active transportation investments, it has apparently been proven that dollar for dollar, bike infrastructure has a higher return on investment than road expansion: for every $1 million invested in an FHWA-approved paved bicycle or multi-use trail, the local economy gains 65 jobs.
• If one considers that food is the cyclists' fuel, cyclists pay substantively more in taxes than the nominal amount of maintenance impact they cause.
• The state Air Resources Board and federal government are paying motorists to junk old polluting and low mileage vehicles. So, if bicycles do not pollute or use fossil fuel, and do not damage roads, it makes sense that public policy should encourage their use by reducing disincentives to bicycling.
• In terms of overall community benefits, more bikes on the road means lower health care costs for everyone, safer streets for all users (not just people on bikes), better air quality and less congestion.
• And, as the former Caltrans District 1 Director Rick Knapp puts it, if we apply the logic that vehicles have more right to the roadway because they pay more gas tax, then Hummers and Caddies have more right to the road than do Hondas and Priuses.

I'm waiting to hear if this satisfies the commissioner.