Decades after first being introduced in Europe, the New South Wales Government is reportedly considering paying people to ride electric bicycles and scooters to work.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that several options were up for assessment, including:
- a tax incentive that would allow riders to claim a per-kilometre allowance for each commute
- a rebate to buy an e-bike.
The Herald quotes from an October 2024 internal government document that states that incentives would encourage more people to own an e-bike or e-scooter, and that owners would take more trips by e-bike or e-scooter.
Research from around the world has shown that helping people buy an e-bike will lead to those people taking fewer trips by car.
Paying commuters to ride
Belgium was one of the first countries in the world to pay people to ride to work, with a scheme introduced in 1999 that is still running today: cyclists can claim 0.24 euros in tax credits for every kilometre ridden to work.
Since then, France and the Netherlands have introduced schemes that mirror the per-kilometre payment via taxation systems.
Bicycle Network has put forward the proposition in various submissions over the years to the Australian Government as a way of improving health, reducing congestion and reducing climate change emissions. The only movement at the federal level has been for e-bikes to be included in allowable salary packaging, but this doesn't extend to standard bicycles.
Bike rebates
Helping people to buy a bicycle or an e-bike is another common way for governments to provide incentives to ride to work and is more popular internationally than a pay-to-ride approach.
E-bike subsidies, rebates or grants are offered throughout North America as well as South Korea, Portugal, Austria, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Bicycle Network lobbied the Tasmanian Government to become the first place in Australia to help people buy an e-bike through a rebate scheme that applied to new bike purchases out of a pool of $300,000.
Since then, Queensland has offered a similar scheme with a much bigger $2 million pool of money, and Tasmania has gone on to offer no-interest loans for e-bike purchases.
In the UK, the Cycle to Work scheme helps people buy bicycles, e-bikes and relevant equipment through a salary sacrifice arrangement.
The New South Wales Government has not indicated whether the incentives have been considered and decided on, or are still a live option.
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