Originally Posted by
CrankyOne
Europe wide an e-bike approved for use on a bikeway may not have any motor assist above 25 km/h (15 mph) and must be assist only - E.G., no throttles allowed and some portion of propulsion must be provided by the rider unless they are certified disabled. Some places are stricter with a 20 km/h (12.4 mph) upper limit as well as stricter rules on how much assist may be provided. This latter is typically in the form of only allowing some % of assist up to perhaps 10 km/h and then assist must taper to 0 by the upper limit. IOW, if you want to go fast on a bikeway it's up to you.
This sounds a lot more appropriate to mixing with existing bike traffic, rather than
replacing (and implicitly
displacing) it.
I wish the people voting for 20 mph as the lowest class were given an opportunity to ride a citibike with a simple speedometer added to it first, from a driver perspective that number means little, but I doubt most of them could get anywhere near it for more than a sprint. Or to ride a citibike at their comfortable speed while experiencing a steady stream of people passing them at 20.
Actually it is different depending on how much assist someone has. Something that has been noticed in The Netherlands and Germany is that the more someone provides their own power the more considerate they are of others providing their own power. This is one of the reasons that Europe is moving towards tapered assist.
The "personal energy investment" is a good thought, too - part of the problem with motors is going fast when it's not really worth it - you get the whole cager mentality of winning the race to the next red light (if that even means anything), etc. That said, my own thinking has tended to turn more towards things like lowered cutout limits on inclines, etc to better model the speed profile of a pedal bike for traffic compatibility.