Originally Posted by
tn_roadie
I asked this question on the e-bike forum and thought I would put it over here since advocates may have a different view point.
How does your city handle e-bikes on greenways? My local park commission thinks they have banned them but I've been riding for 5 years and have never been stopped. Tennessee passed the People for Bikes law like 25 other states and it says they're legal unless the city passes an ordinance banning them. Our city council has never done that. Our bike share program is about to drop 300 e-bikes and it will be interesting to see the reaction. The main complaint is speeding on greenways but there are many roadies who go a lot faster than an e-bike.
I was just wondering how many local governments have implemented a ban. I hope it's not many.
New York City bans e-bikes on at least some of its greenways. The Hudson River Greenway has prominent signage indicating that e-bikes are prohibited.
In the best of times, the ban isn't enforced. At this particular time, New York City is pretty much unpoliced, so ebikes use it all the time.
I hear you about hoping that more cities don't implement bans, but here in NYC, the e-bike situation is getting out of control.
Originally Posted by
LarrySellerz
Ebikes are amazing. They open the door for more cyclists to join the hobby, allows old/feeble people to go fast, and allows the average rider to tackle things they never could have before. I don't own an Ebike but the cyclists who cry about them are real babies, they aren't cheating. Also they are great to draft.
Who cares about the local ordinance? Lol. srs op? There ain't an ebike police
You are correct. There ain't an e-bike police. And the regular police don't care.
But e-bikes are out of control here in NYC. It started with delivery riders. And, believe me, I have nothing but sympathy for these riders, who hustle their asses off trying to scratch out a living.
As a rule, they're riding conventional e-bikes. They do not generally pay attention to direction. They'll take the shortest possible route to their destination, and if that means going the wrong way on the bike path, that's what they'll do. At night, many off them ride with their lights off. I don't know if this is because the lights have burned out and the riders haven't gotten around to replacing them, or if they're turning the lights off to save electricity. I get how important that would be for these riders, but I can't imagine the drain from a couple of LEDS is really a make-or-break thing. And, given the hours I work, I'm always riding home in the dark, so this is a real danger.
And then there's e-bike creep. Seeing the ebikes using the bike paths and greenways, electric scooter riders decide that they're in the same category, and can use the bike paths too. And these are much more powerful, and much faster, vehicles. I see Revel and Lime scooters in the bike paths every single day. I believe the Revel scooters have some sort of governor that limits their speed, but they're still faster than bicycles, especially uphill. And the ones owned by their riders (rather than the rentals) may or may not have any kind of governor.
And then the internal combustion scooters decide they can ride wherever the electric scooter riders go. So I'm starting to see actual Vespas and the like on the Manhattan Bridge bike path. They just don't want to deal with traffic, so they use the bike path, and then the bike path going up First Avenue (my usual route to work).
And since, as I said above, NYC is more or less unpoliced these days, many the electric scooter and ICE scooter people aren't bothering with registering their vehicles and getting license plates. Which also means they're not bothering with insurance. So you're on your own if one of them hits you.