Encinitas to explore new regulations on e-bike use

Encinitas will follow its neighboring cities and enact new e-bike regulations to promote youth safety, City Council members unanimously decided Wednesday.

Changes to city ordinances could include an age limit on e-bike use, the establishment of bike dismount zones in the coastal downtown region, and even the potential of bike confiscation, if teens don’t follow the rules, council members said as they directed city employees to draft some proposed ordinance changes for their later consideration.

Councilmember Jim O’Hara said that a city conversation on e-bike safety was “overdue,” while Mayor Bruce Ehlers said he had planned to bring the issue up during the council’s goal-setting workshop. That annual event is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, starting both days at 8:30 a.m. at the Encinitas Library’s community room.

In a report produced for Wednesday’s council meeting, O’Hara wrote that Encinitas should amend its municipal codes in several spots, so that its regulations are similar to the “more robust enforcement tools” now being pursued by Oceanside and Carlsbad. His proposals included:

• Establishing a minimum age of 12 or older to ride a Class 1 (electric-assist) or Class 2 (fully electric-powered, but achieving speeds of less than 20 mph) bike, as Carlsbad is doing. State law prohibits people under age 16 from riding a higher-speed, Class 3 electric bike;
• Setting new stands for daytime running lights on bikes and “stricter paren...