The cycling lobby rejoiced on the last day of the spring session of the Swiss parliament. The National Council and Council of States had adopted the Cycle Path Act. The day before, Aargau SVP National Councillor Benjamin Giezendanner had submitted a motion, which is likely to be less enthusiastic in the cycling community: "The Federal Council is instructed to create the legal basis so that users bear the costs of the infrastructure costs for bicycle traffic themselves as far as possible."

The argument is that cycle paths are primarily useful for cyclists and that they also burden the general public with accident costs, which have risen sharply in recent years. In addition to 39 members of the SVP parliamentary group, the motion was also co-signed by a handful of FDP National Councillors and a representative of the Center Party. When asked by the Sonntagszeitung (paid-for article), motion author Giezendanner said that he considered a contribution of CHF 20 per bike per year to be appropriate. This should make mountain bikers prick up their ears, especially those who ride different bikes and even more so if they have bike-loving children.

In future, bicycles will have an identification tag similar to the highway sticker. This brings back memories of the bicycle vignette, which was abolished in 2012, and its predecessor, the aluminum sticker known to the older ones among us as the Velonümmerli. It became uncomfortable in late spring and the new number had to be screwed on or stuck on by June 1 at the latest. Riding without a number cost 40 francs if you were caught by a dutiful police officer. However, the 10 francs annual fee did not go towards the infrastructure, but was a liability insurance premium.

Who costs the general public how much?

Back to the present, or rather the future: Benjamin Giezendanner, son of former National Councillor Ulrich Giezendanner, believes that mandatory cost sharing would treat cyclists in the same way as "car drivers, motorcyclists and train passengers". Anyone who gains additional rights with the Cycle Path Act must also take on additional obligations, i.e. pay. Sonntagszeitung editor Mischa Aebi compared the degree of cost recovery for car drivers and cyclists. In fact, motorists cover the direct financial costs of car traffic in full through fuel taxes and other charges. Apart from non-earmarked taxes, cyclists pay nothing.

However, if you include external costs such as environmental pollution, damage to buildings caused by exhaust fumes and accident costs not covered by insurance, the calculation looks different, according to the Sonntagszeitung. In the reference year 2015 - the last year for which all figures are available - Federal Parliament editor Aebi arrives at 14 percent of the total costs of car traffic, which are borne by the general public. This coverage gap is more than three times the CHF 2 billion that cyclists cost annually according to Giezendanner's estimate and do not pay themselves.

Participating in the costs of something that benefits you sounds sensible. Whether the many car drivers who also ride a bike from time to time want to dig into their pockets for this is another matter. In one of the next sessions, the National Council must now decide whether to refer the Giezendanner motion to the Federal Council. If it does, the government will have to draw up a corresponding bill. The National Council and Council of States will then discuss this and decide whether and in what form they will enact it - or in other words, whether we will one day have to buy a Velonümmerli for our bike again.