Because the cyclists, too, are part of the
  public? It's not like that public money is
  solely sourced from automobile drivers.

Then, would you be not opposed to requiring bicycles to be registered, bicyclists to be licensed & taxed just like cars & vehicular traffic does?

If you want a lane all to yourself isn't only fair that you pay your fair share toward the building, maintenance and repair of the lanes? Why should you get to use them free of cost?

We do pay our fair share, over half of the road funding in Georgia comes from general revenue, i.e. taxes everyone pays regardless of vehicle.

Don't act like my bike puts as much wear and tear on the road as your 3 ton SUV or the 18-wheelers and delivery trucks.

You are delusional, as a car driver you are using trillions of dollars of infrastructure paid for by cyclists. When are you going to start paying for what you use? That is why I love toll roads so much, for once car drivers almost pay their way. You still don't pay for the pollution you cause, or the damage to do killing people.

I'm suggesting that it's not right to inconvenience the majority (drivers), for the sake of a relatively privileged minority (folks who can afford to live within cycling distance of their jobs downtown).

Before going too far down the road with this argument, you also need to figure out how many of those drivers would use something other than a car if it were feasible. The majority is not necessarily the majority by choice in this case.

It also is useful to bear in mind how small a slice of the larger society people who frequent HN represent.

It is easy to get carried away with these hyper arguments in favor of public transit, bicycling everywhere and for everyone, high density living and removing parking wherever possible.

It is helpful to bear in mind that just because a small canal-ridden city of 800,000 people ( Amsterdam has an area of 85 square miles while even NYC is 302 and Chicago is 234 ) has a high density of cyclists doesn't mean we shape policy for much of the Western world based on that small city of homogeneous people with homogeneous values and neighborhoods.

> you also need to figure out how many of those drivers would use something other than a car if it were feasible.

The one thing that debunks that argument is the fact that people aren't replacing their cars with motorcycles.