NH Bill to Charge Bike Registration Fees Inspires Opposition

WEST LEBANON — Upper Valley residents are raising concerns about a bill proposed by the chair of the New Hampshire House Transportation Committee, which would require bike and e-bike owners to annually register and pay a $50 fee.

House Bill 1703 is scheduled to be discussed at 11 a.m. Tuesday during a House Transportation Committee meeting in Concord. People can also participate and watch online via https://gc.nh.gov/house/schedule/eventDetails.aspx?event=2177&et=1.

Even ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Upper Valley residents were voicing opposition to the proposal for reasons ranging from issues with enforcement, questions about the cost of setting up a new registration system, questions about revenue and concerns about discouraging bicycling.

“There are also unanswered questions about the cost and burden placed on municipalities for enforcement,” Hanover Police Chief Jim Martin wrote in an email. “In a college town, bicycles are frequently bought, sold, or passed between students, which makes tracking ownership extremely difficult in practice. As a result, the effectiveness of a registration requirement in communities like ours is questionable.”

The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Thomas Walsh, R-Hooksett, said he sponsored the bill as a way to provide more funding for the state’s highway fund, which is used for construction, including highways, bike lanes and recreational trail systems.

The Department of Transportation announced last fall that it is facing a $400 million shortfall to carry out its latest 10-year infrastructure plan.

“What I’m trying to do, the original thought, because people do like these trails, is why don’t we do the same thing we do for (off-highway recreational vehicles, or OHRVs) and snowmobile fees?” Walsh said in a Monday phone interview. “Why would the bike trails be any different?”

Owners of OHRVs and snowmobiles pay yearly registration fees, Walsh noted. Those fees range from $50 to $161, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.

As a youth in Manchester in the 1970s, Walsh said he remembered going down to the Manchester Police Department to register his bike every year.

“This is not a new concept,” he said.

He emphasized that the bill is just a draft and that he is open to suggestions for improving it.

“It was never expected to pass in its current form,” Walsh said. “The $50, it’s just a starting point. There should have been a child exemption there absolutely, maybe 16 and under it doesn’t apply.”

As proposed, the bill applies to all bikes that riders are allowed to use “on state or municipally funded paths, trails, and roadways,” according to the bill’s text.

Under the proposal, those who fail to register their bikes with the Division of Motor Vehicles, which is part of the Department of Public Safety, could face a $100 fine for each violation.

All fines and fees collected by the DMV would be sent to the Department of Transportation commissioner “for the creation and maintenance of bicycle routes, lanes, paths, or trails in the state,” according to the bill.

The Department of Transportation said it could not estimate what revenue it could collect from fees from the bill because of the unknowns about the number of bicycles in the state. “The Department notes that this bill could imply it is responsible for maintaining bicycle routes, a task the Department is not currently staffed or funded to do, and a task the revenue from this bill may not be sufficient to cover,” a summary of the bill’s impact from the Department of Transportation said.

The DMV would “be responsible for “developing and administering a new registration program for an indeterminable number of bicycles and electric bicycles statewide,” according to a summary about the impact of the bill on the Department of Safety. That would include creating applications, issuing registration numbers and certificates, collect fees and “enforcing compliance.”

Although it’s not stated in the bill, Walsh said town clerks would be the “logical place” for bike registration to take place, as that is where residents also register their motor vehicles.

The Department of Public Safety estimated it would cost $150,000 to create and test the new registration system and that it would cost 45 cents for each certificate and accompanying sticker. It also estimated it would need to hire three additional license clerk employees, which would cost nearly $600,000 in fiscal years 2027-2029.

“If you try to charge people $50 bucks to register a bike it’s going to create a big new bureaucracy to do it and it’s going to discourage people from riding their bicycles,” Bill Young, a longtime member of the Hanover Bike Walk Committee and longtime pedestrian and bike safety advocate, said in a phone interview.

He also worried that if law enforcement officers were tasked with checking for registration decals on bikes it would take their time away from enforcing “real safety issues.”

Rep. George Sykes, D-Lebanon, called HB 1703 “a bad bill” and worried about the financial effect on families. He also opposes it from an environmental and health point of view.

“We want to encourage bicycle use, not discourage it,” Sykes, a member of the Transportation Committee, said in a phone interview.

The Friends of the Northern Trail, a nonprofit organization that supports the nearly 60-mile multi-use trail that extends from Lebanon to Boscawen, also released a statement opposing the bill.

“Cyclists already contribute to the New Hampshire Economy through tourism spending, property taxes, and general fund revenue,” Donald Moyer, the nonprofit’s president, wrote.