City officials in Buena Park are taking another look at potentially allowing e-bikes on city sidewalks, as long as they follow a 10 mile-per-hour speed limit and yield to pedestrians.<\/p>\n
Officials say the higher sidewalk speed is needed so if the city does allow riding on sidewalks, a lower speed limit could push people to ride on the street.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided to explore our capabilities of going faster,\u201d said Councilmember Carlos Franco at Tuesday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s what our youth is doing. That doesn\u2019t change by generation. What we need to do is set some rules to keep them safe, and to keep pedestrians walking safely.\u201d<\/p>\n
It comes as cities across Orange County have been grappling with how to best regulate e-bikes as infrastructure overhauls supporting safer riding lag behind.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Currently, city law bans<\/a> all \u201celectric mobility devices,\u201d including e-bikes, e-skateboards and motorized scooters, are not allowed on city sidewalks, drains, fields, gyms, playgrounds or public property in the city.<\/p>\n Additionally, they cannot be ridden in an \u201cunsafe manner\u201d on roads, highways or bike paths, meaning that the riders cannot swerve around traffic or pedestrians, go against traffic, or go over 25 miles per hour.<\/p>\n However, those under 18 are currently allowed to ride on sidewalks, given that they are not \u201cunsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n In July, staff presented the potential sidewalk speed limit<\/a>, but city council members asked staff to look at neighboring cities\u2019 regulations before proceeding.<\/p>\n At last night\u2019s meeting, Buena Park Police Department Sergeant Roger Plumlee presented information from Fullerton, Cypress, La Palma and Anaheim \u2013 Buena Park\u2019s neighbors \u2013 that shows different approaches to e-bikes.<\/p>\n Fullerton<\/a> and Anaheim<\/a> allow riders on sidewalks, though Fullerton imposes a 5 mile-per-hour speed limit, and Anaheim only allows it in posted areas. Both require riders to yield to pedestrians.<\/p>\n Cypress<\/a> doesn\u2019t have any specific municipal codes regarding e-bike usage, referring to statewide regulations instead and La Palma<\/a> prohibits unsafe riding and bans e-motorized vehicles on sidewalks.<\/p>\n Ultimately, staff recommended a 10 mile-per-hour sidewalk speed limit for those under 18 be adopted, along with specific wording to give pedestrians the right of way.<\/p>\n According to Plumlee, the 10 mile-per-hour speed limit, as opposed to other cities\u2019 5 mile-per-hour limits, is because of the pre-existing allowance for youth to ride on the sidewalk, and not tempt them to ride in the street to go faster.<\/p>\n \u201cIt gives them a little more speed so we\u2019re not encouraging street use,\u201d Plumlee said at the meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Plumlee also mentioned that the department is currently working alongside school districts in the area for education outreach.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re working with educators who try to develop a plan to continue the education side, so we\u2019re not strictly focused on enforcement,\u201d Plumlee said at the meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Huntington Beach is the first OC City to roll out an e-bike riding training course<\/a>, designed for youth and their parents to learn rules and bike safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n The class can be taken to waive a citation, and must be completed for those in Huntington Beach schools to bring their e-bikes to school<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Buena Park City Council members ultimately gave city staff the green light to develop specific language that would be voted on at a later date to add a 10 mile-per-hour speed limit to sidewalks and give pedestrians right of way.<\/p>\n \u201cI see that the legal protections that this can have for folks that are injured, and the city\u2019s taking an active role to protect future potential victims,\u201d said Mayor Connor Traut at Tuesday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, several OC cities are cracking down on e-bike usage.<\/p>\n Cities like Yorba Linda<\/a>, Huntington Beach<\/a>, Irvine<\/a> and Placentia<\/a> have established their own city-specific ordinances to prevent reckless riding.<\/p>\n Michelle King is a Voice of OC reporting fellow. You can reach her at michelleking.news@gmail.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City officials in Buena Park are taking another look at potentially allowing e-bikes on city sidewalks, as long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,9636,22387],"class_list":["post-473462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-e-bike-laws","tag-e-bike-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473462","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=473462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}