In another thread Hasbeen said this as part of a comment: "In this user pays society it is time cyclists paid for their own tracks, & were never allowed on public roads paid for by the motorist a dozen times over."

So this has got me wondering: How much do cyclists currently pay to use the roads?

At first this may seem a really simple question to answer- they pay nothing while car users pay rego and fuel tax. But it is not that simple because you need to include everything here. Eg:
Most road cycling is conducted on local council roads of which new ones are typically built by developers and hence eventually paid for by the initial purchases of new blocks of land- buyers of which includes cyclists. While the maintenance of these roads is mostly paid for by council through money raised via rates which cyclists contribute to either directly by owning homes or indirectly via rent. But presumably bikes do negligible damage to roads compared to cars in which case they would contribute disproportionately more to the cost of maintaining local roads than motorists do.
The roads that motorist pay for via rego and fuel tax are the high speed (>=60km/hr) state main roads - which the majority of cyclists tend to avoid or are prohibited from riding on. But even many of the state roads cyclists are contributing to because some are partially paid for by federal government grants (especially the large multi-billion dollar projects) which cyclists contribute to by way of income tax.
And lastly if they own a registered car as well as a bike then for every km they ride a bike for normal commuting is one less km that they would have driven the car. In which case they have paid via their rego for that usage.

It would be interesting to do an in-depth analysis of just how much cyclists pay for the usage of the roads they use. It would not surprise me at all if they pay more than car motorists on a kilometer driven basis.

[PS: In case you're wondering, I DON'T cycle. I haven't ridden a pushbike in 20 years. And I, like many motorists, get quite annoyed by cyclists at times- especially the weekend cyclists in large groups that take up the whole road.]

The Great Australian Fear, someone else might benefit a tad more at times !

Not enough.

They should have to register their bikes, at as a minimum the $700 it costs foe a small car, which causes less than half the disruption & havoc that bikes cause on the road.

I hate cyclists on the road.

That said.
Do you think cyclists don't own cars, or pay registration?
Obviously they can't drive their registered car on the road when they are riding their bike.

I hate the bastards riding past your house in a team of 100 screaming at each other at 5.30am on the Sunday morning.
I hate them riding 2 or 3 abreast and blocking lanes.
I hate it when I see them riding on the road, and the council spent a mint putting in a bike path just 3 metres away, but they won't use that as they are practicing to wear the yellow jersey in the next tour de France.

I hate cyclists on the road, but they probably do own cars and pay rego.
Whether they should pay an extra cost specifically for riding their bikes on roads, I'm not sure.
You might have to pay for each of your kids to have a bicycle license and registration, what do you think about this?

Q: How much do cyclists pay to use the roads?
A: They pay with their lives.