|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Danville Town Council is set to discuss e-bike and scooter safety in an early morning study session Tuesday aimed at working towards addressing numerous concerns raised by bike safety advocates and residents.
The upcoming talk is the latest in a series of steps the town has been taking in an effort to address safety and enforcement challenges posed by the rising popularity of e-bikes in recent years, with the goal of generating ideas about additional steps to address safety issues in the future.
“Over the past several years, cities across the country have faced safety issues arising from the growth in the number of E-bikes and e-scooters,” Town Manager Tai Williams wrote in a staff report prepared for the upcoming meeting. “Danville has not been immune to this trend. While E-bikes and scooters provide a new and effective mode of transportation, their increased use has raised safety concerns in the community.”
Over the past year, the town has sought to address these concerns with an ordinance prohibiting e-bikes on public sidewalks in the town’s commercial districts and regulating them on trails and in parks, outreach and education efforts in collaboration with the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, and enforcement actions from the Danville Police Department that began in recent months – most of which have led to verbal warnings, but with some citations and bike impoundments so far.
“In spite of these steps, the Town is aware that safety concerns still exist and may be exacerbated during summer and during the start of the school year in August,” Williams wrote. “The Town Council has heard concerns from park users about unsafe riders and confrontations with those using e-bikes or scooters in an unsafe manner.”
Additional education efforts in the works include increased parent communication via staff at the town’s summer programs, additional training for summer staff, a potential juvenile diversion program for youth offenders, additional e-bike education in the Street Smarts program, and a public awareness campaign.
Town staff are also requesting policy direction from the council on other measures at the local and state legislative level. Williams pointed to an assembly bill that implemented a pilot program covering Marin County that allows for its communities to ban the use of Class 2 e-bikes by those under the age of 16 through 2029 as one policy example worth exploring.
“Town staff believes similar legislation could serve as a valuable additional safety tool for Danville,” Williams wrote. “We recommend engaging with local legislators in the upcoming session to explore the possibility of a comparable bill.”
“However, the Council should be aware that initial outreach and research shows that advancing such legislation may be challenging, as many lawmakers view e-bikes as an affordable transportation option for their constituents and have been resistant to advance measures that could limit their use,” she continued.
Despite the potential challenges, adopting legislation modeled after the pilot program in Marin to prohibit Class 2 e-bike use by those under 16 is an option that two out of the three written comments received ahead of the meeting by Monday evening called for, with all three commenters pointing to concerns that specifically related to younger teenagers from their own experiences.
“I look forward to a time when our youth are healthy and strong enough to operate regular bicycles,” Kim Risedorph wrote in an email to the Town Council. “Until that time, adults in the community need to act and protect everyone.”
Another commenter, Nicola Place, said that the increasing presence of e-bikes on the Iron Horse trail and in downtown had deterred her and her social circle from these areas, and given way to increased fears when driving throughout town.
“I personally am also afraid of being involved in an accident with a young e-bike rider while driving my vehicle,” Place wrote. “Accidents involving children always skew to blaming the driver – even when it may well have been the child’s fault. I’ve been through this once and I’m not interested in a repeat performance.”
Locally, Williams suggested revisiting the two existing ordinances adopted by the council last year, one of which prohibits unsafe or reckless riding in parks and banning the vehicles from playgrounds, to consider additional amendments such as prohibiting e-bikes from parks altogether, imposing a speed limit, or limiting areas in which they may be used. That possibility is set to be discussed further by the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission at its next meeting Wednesday (July 9).
Later in the month, the towns Bicycle Advisory Commission is set to review proposed amendments to its e-bike ordinance that would either expand sidewalk restrictions in commercial areas at its July 28 meeting.
The Danville Town Council is set to meet at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday (July 7). The agenda is available here.
