Every so often I hear a complaint about cyclists that goes something like this:
“They aren't licensed, they don't have insurance and they don't pay for the roads. Why should they be allowed to use them?”
It sounds like a reasonable question until we look more closely at what those statements mean and how British Columbia actually funds and regulates transportation.
The short answer is that paying for a road is not a condition of having the legal right to use it. Cyclists are legitimate road users with specific rights and duties, and the transportation system is not funded exclusively by charges imposed on people who drive motor vehicles.
Cyclists have the right to use the road
Section 183 of B.C.'s Motor Vehicle Act says that a person operating a cycle on a highway has the same rights and duties as a driver of a vehicle, subject to the specific rules that apply to cyclists.
That doesn't mean cyclists can do whatever they want. They must obey traffic laws, ride on the appropriate side of the highway, use required equipment and comply with other rules that apply to them. A cyclist can also receive a traffic ticket for violating the law.
The important point is that the law does not make payment toward road construction or maintenance a condition of using the highway.
The same principle applies to other road users. We don't require pedestrians to prove that they have contributed toward the cost of a sidewalk before they can walk along it, and we don't ask a driver to demonstrate that their fuel taxes have paid for a particular section of pavement before allowing them to drive on it.
But cyclists don't pay fuel tax
That's true. A bicycle doesn't consume gasoline or diesel, so its rider doesn't pay motor fuel tax through fuel purchases.
But that isn't the same thing as saying that fuel taxes pay for all roads.
For 2026, the general provincial fuel tax is 14.5 cents per litre on gasoline and 15 cents per litre on diesel. A portion of the fuel tax is dedicated to the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority (BCTFA).
The BCTFA's actual 2024/25 accounts illustrate the larger picture. The authority received about $438 million in tax revenue, including the dedicated fuel-tax component and provincial sales tax collected on short-term car rentals. Its expenditures included about $768 million for highway operations, along with substantial amounts for transit, ferries, other transportation costs and debt servicing.
The transportation taxes collected by the BCTFA therefore don't operate as a simple pay-as-you-go system in which motorists collectively pay the entire cost of the roads they use.
Local roads add another part of the picture. Municipalities are responsible for maintaining them, and property taxes are among the major sources of municipal revenue used to provide local services, including roads.
This doesn't mean that every cyclist personally pays enough tax to cover the cost of every road they use. There is no practical calculation that establishes that. It means that public roads are public infrastructure, funded through several sources rather than charged directly to each individual user according to how much pavement they consume.
What about road damage?
This is where the argument becomes more interesting.
Road users don't all impose the same physical demands on a highway. A bicycle, a passenger car and a heavily loaded truck may all use the same pavement, but their effects on it are very different.
Pavement engineering has long recognized the importance of axle loading. The relationship between axle load and pavement damage is commonly described using a fourth-power relationship, although the actual relationship varies with pavement type and the kind of deterioration being considered.
The practical lesson is simple: heavy axle loads are enormously more significant to structural pavement damage than light ones.
A bicycle has very little mass compared with a motor vehicle. Its contribution to structural pavement deterioration is consequently negligible compared with that of motor vehicles, and particularly heavy trucks.
So while a cyclist uses the road, that doesn't mean the cyclist consumes road infrastructure in the same way as a motorist or commercial truck.
Then there are electric vehicles
Battery-electric vehicles provide an interesting counterexample to the idea that paying fuel tax should determine who gets to use a road.
An electric vehicle doesn't buy gasoline or diesel, so it doesn't pay the equivalent fuel tax through that mechanism. Yet it is still a motor vehicle. It is licensed, insured and entitled to use the highway, and it places a substantially greater physical load on the pavement than a bicycle.
The transition to electric vehicles does create a legitimate transportation-finance question: how should governments replace revenue that is currently associated with gasoline and diesel as more vehicles become electrified?
But that is a question about how transportation is funded, not about whether an electric vehicle has the legal right to use the road.
What about e-bikes and e-scooters?
The same distinction applies to smaller electric transportation devices.
B.C. has created a specific legal category for motor-assisted cycles, commonly called e-bikes. A qualifying standard e-bike can have electric motor output of up to 500 watts and a maximum motor-assisted speed of 32 km/h. A light e-bike has lower limits.
These devices don't require the driver's licence, vehicle licence or compulsory insurance that would apply to a motor vehicle. They are regulated differently because they are different from cars, motorcycles and trucks.
B.C. has also permitted qualifying electric kick scooters under a provincial pilot project. Mobility scooters and certain electric wheelchairs are treated differently again, with qualifying users receiving the legal status of pedestrians.
The important point isn't the details of every device. It is that the presence of a battery or electric motor doesn't by itself determine how a device is regulated. The law considers the characteristics and use of the device and establishes rules appropriate to it.
What about insurance?
This is the part of the original complaint that has more substance.
Cyclists aren't required to carry the compulsory motor-vehicle insurance that applies to drivers. However, that doesn't mean a cyclist can ignore responsibility for causing a collision.
Private liability coverage may be available through a homeowner or tenant insurance policy, or through specialized cycling insurance. A cyclist who causes injury or property damage can still face legal and financial consequences.
There is also an important distinction between liability insurance and accident benefits. Under B.C.'s Enhanced Care system, cyclists and pedestrians injured in a crash can receive accident benefits even though they don't insure a motor vehicle.
So “cyclists don't have insurance” is an incomplete statement. A more accurate statement is that cyclists aren't required to carry the compulsory motor-vehicle insurance that drivers must carry.
Paying for the road isn't the same as having the right to use it
B.C.'s transportation system combines fuel taxes, other user charges, general taxation, borrowing and other sources of revenue to build, operate and maintain transportation infrastructure.
It doesn't maintain an account for each road user and compare that person's contribution with the cost of the pavement they happen to be using.
Nor would such a system necessarily make sense. A bicycle and a heavy truck may travel over the same kilometre of highway, but they don't impose anything like the same structural demand on the pavement.
What road users do have is a responsibility to understand the rules that apply to them and use the road safely.
For cyclists, that includes obeying the traffic laws that apply to them. For drivers, it includes recognizing that cyclists and other vulnerable road users have legal rights and allowing them the space and consideration required by law.
British Columbia's traffic laws establish minimum passing distances for drivers approaching vulnerable road users, including cyclists. The minimum is generally one metre on highways with maximum speeds of 50 km/h or less and 1.5 metres where the maximum speed is greater than 50 km/h, with a smaller distance applying in certain separated or protected facilities.
Those rules aren't based on whether the cyclist has contributed to the cost of the road. They're based on the fact that different road users have different characteristics, different risks and different responsibilities.
So the next time someone says, “I pay for these roads, so why should cyclists be allowed to use them?” there is a better question to ask:
What does paying for a road have to do with the legal right to use it?
In British Columbia, the two are largely separate questions.
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