Santa Barbara Ordinance Committee Recommends Update Amid E-Bike Concerns – edhat

by Edhat Staff October 16, 2024, 7:06 am 1.9k Views 20 Comments

Santa Barbara City’s Ordinance Committee is recommending stricter regulations on e-bikes in a move aimed at enhancing road safety. The update to the city’s ordinance, announced at Tuesday’s committee meeting, is sparking a significant conversation within the community.

The committee states the current Santa Barbara Municipal Code (SBMC) has gaps in its coverage of safety regulations for bicycles, e-bikes, and scooters. It lacks clear definitions needed for enforcement and does not distinguish between traditional and electronic bikes. Safety regulations are not centralized in one chapter, reducing clarity for the public. Additionally, the SBMC fails to address all relevant safety concerns and does not provide a comprehensive set of remedies for violations.

Police Chief Kelly Gordon emphasized the urgent need for action to curb reckless e-bike usage on city streets, describing the dual approach of education and enforcement as essential to ensuring everyone’s safety. Gordon stated it’s about changing behavior in a positive way, sometimes through a citation and sometimes through a conversation,

Santa Barbara Police Department (SBPD) data highlights the pressing nature of the issue, with 80 e-bike related collisions reported in the past year—nearly 60% of which were caused by e-bike riders. Despite these figures, safety experts and community members alike called for a balanced perspective, recognizing that the perceived threat from e-bikes pales in comparison to the dangers posed by motor vehicles.

On March 7, 2023, emergency Ordinance 5944 was authorized by the previous City Administrator to regulate the safe use of bicycles and other wheeled devices on the State Street Promenade, sharing similarities with the currently reviewed Ordinance amendments. The committee recommends incorporating these regulations into the SBMC for broader city-wide applicability, offering clearer public and enforcement understanding through a dedicated chapter with multiple enforcement remedies, thus recommending the repeal of the State Street specific rules upon the Ordinance’s enactment.

The SBPD looked to other jurisdictions for effective strategies, finding Huntington Beach’s ordinance particularly successful in enhancing safety. For example, one of the proposed amendments includes provisions for impounding the bikes of underage riders found operating unsafely, allowing for a provision to not only return the bikes but also engage in safety discussions with parents or guardians, aiming to reduce accidents due to inexperience.

Other amendments include:

Any violation of the ordinance is punishable as an administrative citation with the fine not exceeding $100 for the first violation, $200 for a second violation, and $500 for each additional violation within a one-year period. The impoundment of a juvenile’s bicycles for operating in an unsafe manner would requires a parent or other guardian to retrieve the bicycle from the Police Department and the payment of an impound fee.

The discussion will next move to the Santa Barbara City Council.

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“not more than two abreast except on paths or parts of a roadway set aside for the exclusive use of bicycles.”

This is counter to the law that requires bikes (on the road in a bike path) to ride as far to the right as possible. This is dangerous when you have the roadies riding on Cathedral Oaks two abreast, sometimes three, and pushing cars out over the median so as to give them their “3 feet” of space. I’ve need many near accidents at high speed when going around curves to avoid selfish cyclists. Single file is and always should be the rule on bike paths like they have on the roads. Dedicated paths like on Cabrillo, ok fine, but not on busy streets.

I sort of have an “issue with this statement”:“Despite these figures, safety experts and community members alike called for a balanced perspective, recognizing that the perceived threat from e-bikes pales in comparison to the dangers posed by motor vehicles.”…pointing out the obvious (apparently only to me?) -> an e-bike is actually a motor vehicle.

I commend the committee for looking to Huntington Beach’s ordinance as a start to the discussion. Often rule makers waste soo much time “redesigning the wheel”.

That list of amendments, also called rules or laws, won’t mean a thing unless they’re enforced. I don’t see that issue addressed.

The City created a commission to deal with the residential parking issues on the East and West sides. The committee held community meetings and received a lot of feedback from the public. A year and a half later there’s been 0 action by the committee because the City lacks enforcement capability, ie, funding for personnel to enforce whatever rules they enact. That’s from the word from the committee, not my opinion.

I’ve been riding an e-bike for 4.5 years, about 20 miles a day. I run every red light and have never received a ticket.

You are not going to solve this problem by passing more laws, when the current laws are not enforced.

If you want to solve this problem, pardon this man and give him a medal: https://www.edhat.com/news/suspect-arrested-for-assaulting-children-on-e-bikes-on-santa-barbaras-state-street/

Scofflaws and scum, both of you.

CRS223 – grown men who hit girls should get nothing but jail time and a good beating themselves.

Pretty sick to applaud child abuse.

she hit the guy with her bike and then talked crap to him….i was there. alot of us were there. even my 17 yo daughter was there. she too agreed the girl got what she deserved. but i’m sure you and the rest of the gang will just argue and pick it apart. have at it. we’ll never see eye to eye on things. a week before that, the same group of kids chased an adult down and threw things at him on state, one of the kids ran into an elderly man knocking him down and injuring him, and sped off. this was going to happen whether it was this incident or another. people got mad and the kids pushed the envelope. don’t get all snowflakey on me. alot of these kids push things way too far then get passive aggressive about it

KNEIN – I call BS. You commented plenty on this child abuse when it happened and never once said you were there. Super convenient now, huh? Also, why do you feel its ok for a grown man to physically assault a minor because she “talked crap.” Glad your “cop buddies” did the right thing and arrested this coward that you sadly applaud.

Funny, we used to agree on a lot Zerohawk but once you started changing your name (how many times now?) you seemed to go full troll on us.

I hope you don’t hit your kids for “talking crap” to you. Weak.

Do you really consider what happened to be child abuse? Child abuse is so awful and horrifying, I wonder how a person who suffered child abuse would feel about applying that to what happened. It seems to minimize it.

Is “child assault” more palatable? I really don’t know what else to call it when a grown man hits a girl in the face. What would you call it, Alex?

We really going to rehash this all over again?

BASIC it’s not a lie at all. Look up the word “abuse” and get back to us, you violence loving fool.

I don’ know, I don’t think that I engaged with you on this question.

We did, but about semantics relating to the actual strike, punch, slap, hit or whatever.

It’s all good though. i know you don’t actually think hitting kids is ok. Unlike others here…..

Oh, right, I had forgotten that, thanks.

Does your bike seat smell like flowers?

Dingleberry, maybe?

Sac says “Child abuse” ?? You gotta be kidding. Or lying. Not even close. More like consequences for being an idiot on an e-bike. Cmon nanny!

Finally!!! I wrote to city council over a year ago regarding the out-of-control e-bike situation. Council wrote back to me claiming it needed the State to issue guidelines. So now we have something. Also, I didnt notice in the amendments “all bikes both E-bikes and standard bikes must travel in the correct direction on one way streets”

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