BC Budget 2027—Our Recommendations
The provincial government is accepting written submissions from all British Columbians for their Budget 2027 consultation, “Stronger BC”.
Each year, the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services Committee, which includes MLAs from both government and the opposition, asks the public for input on the upcoming provincial budget, and then publishes a report with recommendations based on all input received.
Read the BC Minister of Finance’s Budget 2027 Consultation Paper
The province’s current economic forecast—and key issues for consideration—are shared in a Budget 2027 Consultation Paper prepared by the Minister of Finance.
You can participate by providing written input on the province’s Consultation Portal by 2:00 pm on Friday, June 19.
Our Recommendations
On June 8th, the BCCC’s executive director Colin Stein appeared before the Committee to make the following Budget 2027 recommendations:
Bring back the BC Active Transportation grants, the planning and infrastructure cost-sharing program for local governments and First Nations, and increase funding by 2.5x;
Invest in AT infrastructure along B.C.’s rural transportation corridors, specifically to support destination access as part of the province’s new outdoor recreation strategy and tourism sector action plan; and
Increase funding for education and encouragement programs that support adaptation/adoption strategies related to new infrastructure, and the policies, regulatory frameworks and laws that accompany active transportation growth.
For the recommended funding amounts, we looked at per capita spending—the amount of money spent per British Columbian (between 4.75 and 5.75 million people over the past decade), as a way of doing ‘apples to apples’ comparison of different types of transportation investments, particularly infrastructure projects such as bridges, tunnels and roads, trails, and other facilities that move people.
The B.C. government has typically spent approximately $750 per capita on transportation investments, typically dominated by highways, bridges, tunnels and public transit
For the 2025-26 fiscal year, approximately $11 per capita was spent on AT infrastructure and programs.
That’s less than 1.5% of the total budget for transportation and transit investments—this doesn’t represent an equitable share of transportation spending for the two million British Columbians who use something other than a passenger vehicle for transportation.
Using a 2027 population estimate of 5.67 million people, our spending recommendations are as follows:
BC Active Transportation Grants—$10 per capita ($56.7 million)
Provincial AT infrastructure investments—$10 per capita ($56.7 million)
Education and encouragement program spending—$2 per capita ($11.3 million)
The total recommended investment in active transportation is $22 per capita, or $124.7 million—that’s 2.9% of the current plan for provincial transportation investments for the 2027-28 fiscal year.
British Columbians can register to participate in the BC Budget 2027 consultation.
We echo the sentiments of participants in the 2025 independent review of the province’s 2019 climate strategy, CleanBC, who stated a clear preference for “a sustainable funding model that would pay for both public transit and active transportation infrastructure” and “to take up this challenge and not narrowly consider these investments as CleanBC line items.”
Investments in AT are investments in transportation for everyone in B.C., and should be considered as complements to, not in opposition to, other investments in transportation.
Read on below for a discussion of the rationale, reference material and source materials used to come up with our recommendations.
Discussion: BCCC Budget 2027 Recommendations
BC Active Transportation Grants
Last spring, with the announcement of an independent review of CleanBC, the Ministry of Transportation and Transit’s BC Active Transportation Network Planning and Infrastructure (BCAT) grants program was paused.
Since 2004, the Government of British Columbia has provided matching funds to local governments and First Nations for the planning and construction of critical infrastructure to support walking and cycling.
Over 22 years and under various names, this program has contributed almost $165 million in grants, ranging in value from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, to support the delivery of 629 active transportation projects in 139 communities across BC.
This money has funded capital projects like walkways, bikeways and multi-use paths, as well as important road safety features, integrations with public transit and end-of-trip facilities like activated signals, overpasses and bike racks, many of which might never have been built without provincial funding. In many cases, BCAT grants account for half of a local government’s project costs.
BCAT has ultimately helped provide the people-moving capacity to support the Ministry of Transportation and Transit's goals of building an integrated transportation network capable of delivering people-focused transportation services and systems to support its service plans, as well as supporting the road safety, climate action, affordability, and equity-building goals of the province as a whole.
The CleanBC review concluded last November, and the final report called for “a new approach [that] would set and steward updated climate pollution goals and other tangible progress indicators…[and] set ambitious but achievable new targets for climate pollution reduction, efficiency, clean energy use, and electrification, with greater transparency and accountability…”
Fulfilling the objectives of the province’s strategy for clean, sustainable transportation has never been more critical. Since 1993, total GHG emissions in B.C. have risen 20%, largely due to the growth of emissions from road transportation:
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from motor vehicles have grown by 34%
Road transportation has become B.C.’s second-largest source of emissions, after energy combustion
Motor vehicles now account for almost 1/4 of all GHG emissions in B.C., with road transportation now contributing more emissions than industry, agriculture, waste, and land use combined
Even just one or two years of funding interruption measurably slows or stalls progress in transportation planning for local governments and First Nations reliant on provincial contributions for their own capital planning, and creates great uncertainty in communities about their ability to meet their own goals around accessibility, equity and road safety.
With the expectation that a fall 2026 grant intake may be impossible at this point, our recommendation calls on the provincial government to restart BCAT for Budget 2027 so local governments and First Nations can prepare applications for a fall 2027 grant intake.
Provincial infrastructure investments
The province’s Budget 2027 Consultation paper picks up on today’s fiscal uncertainty and economic pressures, calling for spending reductions and creating efficiencies.
Elements of “Stronger BC” also suggest that more than an optimistic tagline for austere times—that B.C. is well-positioned to become an economic powerhouse. This is evidenced by recent signs of strength and momentum for B.C.'s tourism and service economies, via BC Stats Economic Indicators:
International visits to B.C. are back to pre-pandemic highs—over 700,000 annually
B.C. is experiencing its third-highest hotel occupancy rate since the 2010 Winter Games
Spending on food and drink is at an all-time peak, at over $1.5 billion each year
The 2025 CleanBC report referenced this in the context of touting the many values of active transportation:
"Beyond reducing climate pollution, active transportation affords significant health benefits; a growing body of evidence suggests the dollar value of public-health gains often exceeds the cost of infrastructure investments. ...Stakeholders broadly agreed that the benefits of shifting travel to transit and active modes extend well beyond reducing climate pollution, and include enhancing affordability, improving economic productivity, and cleaning the air."
In 2023, the outdoor recreation sector generated $4.8 billion in direct economic contributions, due in large part to the more than 1,400 outdoor recreation and adventure tourism businesses operating throughout the province; a recent study suggested that the climbing sector alone contributed over $42m in revenue to the Squamish local economy in 2025.
One of North America's best examples of a cycling and walking trail, comparable in length to the E&N rail corridor on Vancouver Island, is the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), a 240 km former industrial railway in western Pennsylvania and parts of Maryland.
GAP was converted to a multi-use trail at a cost of USD $80 million beginning in the late 1980s; today, it generates between USD $120-$140 million annually in direct economic benefits, including annual spending at local businesses, annual tax revenue to federal, state, county and local governments, and indirect spending. The trail is also credited with creating over 1,000 jobs in lodging, food and tourism-related sectors between the two states.
Despite the world-class potential of active transportation routes like the Kettle Valley Rail Trail (650 km) and Experience the Fraser (550 km), British Columbia has yet to reap the rewards of cycle tourism experienced by GAP, and other cycle tourism examples, most notable La Route Verte in Quebec and the Ngā Haerenga Cycle Trail in New Zealand.
Dedicated funding for AT facilities along BC’s highway and rail corridors, as well as for the rehabilitation, restoration and development of trails and multi-use paths which connect rural communities across this province, can help unlock the economic growth potential of B.C.'s outdoor recreation and tourism sector, both for domestic and international users.
Education and encouragement programs
A 2021 report card on active transportation from the provincial government showed that:
Over 75% of British Columbians use a mix of travel modes
1 in 10 people in B.C. walk, bike or use another device for at least half of their trips
Cycling and walking are the fastest growing travel modes in B.C.
This doesn’t happen by building infrastructure alone; since the introduction of BC’s active transportation strategy in 2019 and increases to its AT infrastructure and capital funds, the provincial government has also made targeted investments in the education and encouragement programs needed to help British Columbians understand and adapt to changes to the conditions on the ground, new rules of the road, and the many opportunities to embrace active travel modes.
Funding for education and encouragement also supports B.C. government staff capacity to administer and manage programs like the e-bike rebates that benefited over 9,000 British Columbians from 2021-2023, to support the development and promotion of new legislative, regulatory and policy frameworks, and to fund the work of community and provincial groups like the BC Cycling Coalition, BEST Mobility, Capital Bike, GoByBike BC, HUB Cycling, Project 529 and others to support AT across the province.
In the past few years, the budget for B.C.s education and encouragement programs have been cut back repeatedly; we’re calling on the provincial government to allocate $1 towards these programs for every $10 spent on infrastructure and planning.