Juneau Assembly drops e-bike trail rules and takes aim at e-motos citywide

The Juneau Assembly on Monday killed a plan to restrict electric bicycles in city parks and on trails.

Instead, it will take up a citywide ordinance aimed at e-motos, the faster, heavier electric dirt bikes, at its November meeting. That ordinance was introduced the same night.

E-motos were the main complaint from people who testified. Alexandra Reich, a Juneau Mountain Bike Alliance board member, said a group of 12- to 14-year-olds in the Mendenhall Valley rides them on non-motorized trails and has done "a good bit of damage" to the Under Thunder Bike Park.

The trail ordinance came out of months of work by the city's parks advisory committee. In September, the Assembly decided to regulate e-bikes citywide instead, with e-motos as the focus, and directed staff to draft a ban on them on nearly all public property.

The city manager recommended tabling the trail ordinance. Assembly member Paul Kelly moved to reject it instead, which he said kills it immediately. No one objected.

The lightest, slowest e-moto weighs 130 pounds and goes 50 mph, Reich said, and the cheapest costs $5,000. "Their parents bought them a $5,000 toy, so it should be more than a slap on the wrist," she said.

Carol Bookless, 70, of Douglas, said she once biked around the world, owns a Class 2 e-bike and has had both hips and both knees replaced. She agreed young kids shouldn't be riding fast bikes down the middle of the road, but asked the Assembly to form a committee on the issue that includes businesses such as Cycle Alaska. "We need to look at rules to regulate the driver, not the bike," she said.

Neil Atkinson of the Back Loop neighborhood said penalties mean little without enforcement, and that kids need somewhere legal to ride. He said they can't get to 35 Mile, the riding area the rules point them to. He asked the city to use some of the recreation money from the tax voters just approved for a riding area young people can get to.

George Uttermole, speaking for Grateful Dogs of Juneau, said the problem reaches beyond trails to sidewalks and paths such as the Brotherhood Bridge and Twin Lakes paths. He asked the Assembly to carry the rejected ordinance's content into the new rules and to cover electric scooters, skateboards, hoverboards and Segways too.