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The ACT government must spend $120 million over the next four years to upgrade Canberra's disintegrating cycling infrastructure, the territory's peak cycling body says. Pedal Power ACT said authorities needed to spend $30 million a year to clear a backlog of maintenance issues on Canberra's shared paths and build infrastructure for the future, in a submission to the ACT government on the 2017-18 budget. The submission recommended an injection of at least $14 million over the next four years to fix some of the legacy path maintenance issues, in addition to bumping up the annual allocation of maintenance funds to $12 million. The group also wants the government to set an annual resurfacing target for shared paths, like the 5 per cent target for ACT roads. Pedal Power ACT's executive officer John Armstrong said $30 million a year was a "small investment" that would "reap rewards". "The reality is we have ageing infrastructure and there has been a poor allocation of funds towards maintenance in years gone past," Mr Armstrong said. "There are multi millions of dollars invested in the building of roads in the ACT and we would say that investment in cycling infrastructure provides far more health benefits than the investment in road infrastructure." Mr Armstrong favourably compared the infrastructure investment to the cost of congestion, which is tipped to hit $400 million by 2030. Investment in active travel infrastructure in Canberra fell by $4 million last year, Pedal Power ACT estimated. "This network genuinely offers opportunity to people to go from A to B in a far safer environment and that will enable more people to feel comfortable about hopping on their bike and taking a lovely bike trip instead of a car trip and in doing that reduce congestion in the ACT," Mr Armstrong said. Their plan included $47.7 million of major travel infrastructure investments, including linking town centres like Fyshwick and Woden and building the Belconnen bike way. It allowed for $38 million for path maintenance and $30 million for urban renewal projects. It also included $2 million for pilot programs to separate bikes from cars and pedestrians. Labor promised to build cycle hubs and investigate a bike share scheme prior to the ACT election in October. It also promised more bicycle racks in Braddon and to try and attract more cycling tourism to Canberra. Mr Armstrong said the vast majority of Canberra cyclists owned vehicles as well as paid taxes and deserved to see their money invested in infrastructure relevant to their needs. "There is some really good research that's come out of Bicycle NSW that showed more than 90 per cent of their members who ride their bikes are also vehicle holders and pay registration so to suggest those people who choose to ride their bike don't pay registration is a complete furphy," Mr Armstrong said. "That notion of thinking your registration is enough to pay for the roads across the ACT is an absolute furphy as well." Transport minister Meegan Fitzharris said the government received a range of submissions from community groups and organisations which are considered as part of the budget process. She said their focus for the next four years would be delivering their election commitments and the priorities set out in the power-sharing agreement with the Greens. "Better walking and cycling access has been an important part of our focus on transport and will continue to be this term," Ms Fitzharris said. "Encouraging more Canberrans to leave their cars at home by providing great opportunities to walk, cycle, or use public transport is an important priority for me in this term."

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