New restrictions on e-bike use now are being debated by Encinitas city officials following residents\u2019 complaints.<\/p>\n
At a meeting Wednesday night, City Council members encouraged city employees to start exploring options for reducing e-bike conflicts with pedestrians and dog walkers, particularly at parklands and popular trails.<\/p>\n
Mayor Bruce Ehlers said he\u2019s hearing the most complaints from people at the 44-acre Encinitas Community Park and at Olivenhain\u2019s much-smaller Sun Vista Park. Crowds of kids from Diegueno Middle School are cutting through Sun Vista Park each day after school on their e-bikes. They\u2019re speeding along a concrete pathway near the park\u2019s dog-play zone and that\u2019s putting e-cyclists and dog owners in conflict, he said.<\/p>\n
The city has extended fencing along the pathway to keep the youth e-bike riders off the grass, but perhaps more could be done, the mayor said, and others agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want you to ride (your e-bike to get) to the park, but we want you to enjoy the park like others do,\u201d said Dave Knopp, the city\u2019s parks, recreation and cultural arts director.<\/p>\n
Encinitas began amending its municipal codes related to bike usage in June 2023 after e-bike use began soaring. Under the current codes, the San Diego County Sheriff\u2019s Office, which provides policing services in Encinitas, can temporarily seize e-bikes for \u201creckless riding or repeated offenses,\u201d a city staff report produced for Wednesday night\u2019s meeting states. City codes also mandate that any bikes carrying passengers must be equipped with seats for them. And \u201cviolations are enforceable through citations,\u201d it adds.<\/p>\n
A number of cities in San Diego County have recently set a 12-year-old age limit on e-bike use in response to a new state law, and Encinitas could consider doing that, Knopp told the council. However, he added, city data indicates that there may not be all that many Encinitas e-bike riders who are younger than 12. And most of the problem behaviors appears to be coming from 13- to 15-year-olds, Knopp said.<\/p>\n
The sudden popularity of e-bikes has brought an increase in injury reports. A recent University of California, San Diego, study found that e-bike injuries among people younger than age 18 increased by 300% between 2019 and 2023 in San Diego County, the city staff report states.<\/p>\n
In the Encinitas region, there were 59 e-bike collisions between 2022 and 2024, and 30 in 2025, the county Sheriff\u2019s Office reported.<\/p>\n
While young people\u2019s problematic behaviors are an often-discussed topic, e-bike use is increasing among all age categories and that shows up in the injury data.<\/p>\n
Sheriff\u2019s Capt. Shane Watts, who commands the North County Coastal Station, told the City Council Wednesday night that there have been 14 collisions so far this year involving e-bikes, but only half of them were youth bike riders. Two of the 14 cases involved riders who fell off their bikes, and both those riders were older than 70, he said.<\/p>\n
Council member Jim O\u2019Hara, who initially asked for the e-bike issue to be placed on the council\u2019s agenda early this year, said he would like Encinitas to do \u201chuge education push,\u201d with banners, pamphlets and other e-bike safety materials. The city also should explore what it can do to improve education at the \u201cpoint of sale\u201d \u2014 the businesses that sell e-bikes to minors, he said.<\/p>\n
Other council-member suggestions Wednesday night included e-bike speed limits for trails and park areas, more signage, additional bike education programs and increased enforcement efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New restrictions on e-bike use now are being debated by Encinitas city officials following residents\u2019 complaints. At a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,4601,23,3054,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-438919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-encinitas","tag-local-news","tag-north-county","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}