E-bikes banned in Baylands

BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer

Palo Alto City Council voted tonight (Feb. 27) to ban e-bikes on unpaved trails in the Baylands, siding with environmentalists who said that e-bikes go too fast and disrupt the tranquility of nature.

“First and foremost, it’s a nature preserve,” Vice Mayor Greer Stone said.

Council also directed city employees to look at lowering the speed limit for all bikes below 15 miles per hour and to restrict bikes on narrow trails in the Arastradero Open Space Preserve.

Council voted 5-2 to approve the e-bike ban, with Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims and Councilman Greg Tanaka voting no.

“We wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, it’s illegal to drive a Porsche or a Ferrari because they can go too fast.’ But that’s what we’re doing here,” Tanaka said.

Lythcott-Haims said she was concerned about preventing people who are out of shape from going to the Baylands on an e-bike.

“I would imagine many of our residents fall into this category and feel very unseen,” she said.

The city should focus on banning the undesired behavior of speeding bicyclists, not the devices that may encourage it, Tanaka said.

Councilman Pat Burt agreed with Tanaka and Lythcott-Haims in preferring a speed limit for all bikes at 10 miles per hour. That would focus on the undesired behavior rather than the devices that may encourage it, they said.

Burt, Tanaka and Lythcott-Haims also supported a waiver for seniors to continue to e-bikes on unpaved trails, but they didn’t have a majority.

The city’s Parks and Recreation Commission had worked on a recommended e-bike policy for over a year, eventually landing on the one that council approved. 

Commissioner Jeff Greenfield said commissioners weighed competing priorities of transportation versus enjoyment of nature, and recreation versus habitat protection. They made sure that commuters would still be allowed on the paved Bay Trail, which is the fastest route between East Palo Alto and Mountain View. 

Councilman Ed Lauing said supporting the commission’s recommendation will show that council values their input. He said he received 42 comments from residents in support of banning e-bikes on unpaved trails, and six comments against a ban. 

Environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society supported the ban. 

Audubon Society Executive Director Matthew Dodder said e-bikes would scare off endangered birds, and environmentalist Eileen McLaughlin said they make a high-pitched noise that humans can’t hear, but wildlife can. 

Lauing said that the science wasn’t clear on the impacts of e-bikes, so council should follow the philosophy of “do no harm.” 

“I just don’t see why right now we should take the risk of having faster, heavier bikes interrupting the main goal of peace and tranquility,” he said. 

The Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Commission, which is a citizen advisory committee that reports to the city’s transportation, was against the ban. 

Up until November, park rangers were telling people with electric bikes that they couldn’t ride on Palo Alto’s trails. 

But their enforcement was based on outdated rules, as the state stopped classifying e-bikes as off-road vehicles six years ago. 

“We had been under the misconception that regulation was still in effect,” Open Space, Parks and Golf Manager Daren Anderson.

Different agencies have taken different approaches to e-bikes as they become more affordable and popular.

The National Park Service treats e-bikes and regular bikes the same, while the Midepensniusla Regional Open Space District largely bans e-bikes on all but six of 250 miles of trails.