The Trump Oil Shock is going to upend the politics of e-transport. (Image by ChatGPT.)
Assuming this lasts for several weeks or months, millions of carheads are going to suddenly become interested in e-transport. This means barriers to e-transport could be quickly lifted. It also means advocates need to get together on our demands from government.
I’ve been seeing the problem with “Class 3” e-bikes for a year, ever since I went to Utrecht for research and found myself surrounded by teenagers racing their e-motos along the fietspads. (I wrote about it in my book Opa Fiets and the E-Transport Revolution.) I was stuck riding something that couldn’t go faster than 15 mph, while people young enough to be my grandchildren were doing twice that speed, without helmets, on the same paths I was using.
All that has come to America, and naturally we have super-sized it. The rise of fast e-motos that can roll at freeway speeds has legislators’ undies in a bunch. Legislators around the country have been proposing bills like New Jersey’s “bikes are cars” law. They have no Clue on the differences among e-bikes. Manufacturers didn’t tell them. They just sold product and called anything faster than 20 mph a “Class 3.”
The backlash is nationwide. New Jersey is Democratic, but Iowa is Republican. Iowa’s HSB 637 would do the same thing as New Jersey’s law. The bill might also kill the state’s most popular mass participation event, RAGBRAI. It’s stupid.
For government, this is also about money. Illinois House Bill 2454 would make bikes and e-bikes “intended users” of roads, not just permitted users. It would help a lot in court when you get run over, or before local governments that still won’t build bike infrastructure. But now it’s threatened by an allegedly pro-bike Chicago Mayor, who is worried about the costs. Even though bikes save money on roads.
Where Does Reason Lie?
I’ll keep repeating it. If it goes at the speed of a bike, it’s a bike. If it goes at the speed of a motorcycle, it’s a motorcycle.
Highways and their regulations are for motorcycles. At its top speed a motorcycle is dangerous, but it can fight for space on the road.
Motorcycles do not belong on bicycle paths. Bicycle paths are 15 mph paths. They’re for bicycles, for e-bikes, for e-trikes and wheelchairs, anything whose speed tops out at the speed of a bike. For shared paths, and this includes many bike paths, it’s pedestrians who must rule. This means that, on a shared path, a bike is a car. It must give way, and it must slow down. If you want to have a formal speed limit on a crowded path, go for it. I wouldn’t want to be hit at 20 mph by a granny wearing an exoskeleton either.
California is taking a reasonable approach. They’re trying to regulate through manufacturers and retailers, saying you can’t sell a motorcycle as a bike. Florida is going to Florida, although they at least understand that the issue is speed, not what something is called. Suffolk County in New York is addressing behavior, mainly going after teenagers.
Attention now turns to Washington, and a new transportation bill where the Administration wants to kill all trail funding. But the situation is changing. If there’s one thing that will kill oil demand, it’s everyone getting onto cheap electric transport. That transport needs infrastructure.
I got your infrastructure right here, buddy.
