From the 2026 budget audit
Existing cycle routes: the decision belongs to the towns they run through.
Maintenance of built infrastructure is local knowledge — municipalities know which routes their residents use and are willing to budget for. A national ministry does not.
Roughly 368 Ft per taxpayer per year — 1,500 millió Ft to maintain cycle infrastructure whose upkeep is local information held by the municipalities it passes through.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: maintained cycle routes usable by cyclists across the country. The unseen: the local knowledge concentrated in each municipality about which routes are actually used, which sections need repair, and which are valued enough for residents to fund through their local tax — knowledge a national ministry budget cannot access and cannot price correctly.
Objection
"Local governments are already stretched — devolving cycle-route maintenance just means the routes fall into disrepair."
Answer
A three-year transition window gives municipalities time to incorporate the routes they value into their own budgets. Routes that municipalities choose to fund will be maintained; routes that cannot find local support are routes local residents do not value enough to pay for. That is the right test — it is the same test the national ministry budget cannot apply because it does not hold the information.
Share if you think local communities should decide which infrastructure they maintain and fund.
The analyst's verdict
Cycle-Route Maintenance and Operation
Rationale
This line funds the maintenance and operation of existing cycle routes. It is distinguished from new construction by one feature: maintained cycle infrastructure already exists, and abruptly ceasing its maintenance would leave built public infrastructure to degrade — a different situation from cancelling a not-yet-built project. The decision about which routes to maintain, and to what standard, is local information held by the municipalities and residents who use them, not by a national ministry. The classical-liberal reform is devolution: existing routes and their maintenance pass to the municipalities through whose territory they run, financed and prioritised at the level that bears the cost and holds the knowledge. A three-year Phase-Out transfers the maintenance responsibility in an orderly way rather than abandoning the infrastructure.
Transition mechanism
Linear phase-out over 3 years. The maintenance line glides down as responsibility for existing routes is transferred to the municipalities through whose territory they pass, with the three-year window allowing those municipalities to incorporate the routes into their own budgets and maintenance arrangements.
Affected groups
Municipalities, which assume responsibility for cycle infrastructure on their territory over the transition window; cyclists, whose existing routes are maintained throughout the transition and thereafter by the devolved local arrangements.
Free Society Institute
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