RELATED | Jacksonville City Council committee advances e-bike safety ordinance limiting sidewalk speeds<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWith respect to the proposed ordinance, we do not believe establishing a new sidewalk speed limit accompanied by only 26 signs throughout the city provides sufficient or fair notice to the citizens who would be subject to that restriction,\u201d JSO spokesperson Christian Hancock said in a statement to News4JAX. \u201cClear and adequate notice is an important consideration when creating and enforcing a new traffic regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n
JSO also said it would continue enforcing existing Florida laws addressing reckless or dangerous e-bike operation regardless of City Council\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
Boylan said he has since communicated with JSO\u2019s traffic division about the department\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n
He has also introduced a separate ordinance aimed at giving council members another option for adding e-bike speed-limit signs in their individual districts.<\/p>\n
That legislation, Ordinance 2026-755, would allow council members to use existing money previously appropriated for traffic calming and traffic safety improvements to purchase and install e-bike speed-limit signs. The decision to use the money for those signs would be left to each district council member.<\/p>\n
The proposal does not require additional signs to be installed and does not appropriate a new pool of money for them. It was introduced Tuesday and still has to move through the council process. A public hearing is scheduled for Oct. 13.<\/p>\n
Boylan said the signage question is part of making the regulations understandable to riders.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo let\u2019s say I get a call from a constituent about a persistent situation with e-bikes on Orange Picker, for example,\u201d Boylan said. \u201cNow I have an opportunity to buy a sign, put it on the ground there, and say, hey, speed limit on this sidewalk is 15 miles per hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Education is another part of the rollout<\/p>\n
The ordinance also calls for the city\u2019s Transportation Planning Division to develop standardized educational information for known e-bike retailers. <\/p>\n
Boylan said he has also been working with Duval County Public Schools on educating students about e-bike safety.<\/p>\n
He said his concern about younger riders is partly based on an encounter in his own neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had an incident in my own neighborhood where a young boy, probably 10 or 11 years old, rode off the road and went into a ditch, and my wife and I stopped and put him in our car and put his bike in our car and took him to his friend\u2019s house because both of his parents were working,\u201d Boylan said. \u201cSo, you know, we\u2019re just concerned about that, and it\u2019s important for us to educate them, saying, you know, these things are not easy to operate sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ordinance had divided some council members during committee hearings. The Rules Committee approved the substitute 5-2 on Sept. 14, while the Neighborhoods, Community Services, Public Health and Safety Committee approved it 4-1. The Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee advanced it 5-0 the following day.<\/p>\n
By Tuesday night\u2019s final vote, all 19 council members supported the substitute.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 An e-bike rider traveling on a Jacksonville sidewalk could soon have a new speed limit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[832,5890,11398,116,118,117,5436],"class_list":["post-408206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-city-council","tag-donna-deegan","tag-e-bike","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-morning-show"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}