Now that many national parks have expanded access for eBike users, Interior Secretary Bernhardt wants the National Park Service to ask the general public what they think of that./Rebecca Latson file of carriage roads in Acadia National Park
After already ordering units of the National Park System to be more accommodating to eBike users, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt now wants the National Park Service to seek public opinion on eBikes, a move that could be considered to be backwards.
Typically when there's a management issue that could impact park resources, or other park visitors, or which is considered highly controversial, parks go through a planning process that includes seeking public comment before implementing a management decision. In the case with eBikes, Bernhardt in August directed park superintendents to provide more access for eBikes and seek public reaction later.
"E-bikes shall be allowed where other types of bicycles are allowed; and E-bikes shall not be allowed where other types of bicycles are prohibited," read the order the Interior secretary issued in late August.
At the time Bernhardt said the decision "simplifies and unifies regulation of electric bicycles (e-bikes) on Federal lands managed by the Department and also decreases regulatory burden."
The policy change came without public disclosure and without an opportunity for the public to comment on the proposal before it is implemented, moves that appear in conflict with the Code of Federal Regulations. The secretarial order called for the policy to be adopted "unless otherwise prohibited by law or regulation" within two weeks. It also called for public comment, after the fact.
Reaction to that decision drew dozens of comments to a Traveler article, and opposition to allowing eBikes on non-motorized trails in the federal lands system came from dozens of conservation groups, who fear permitting the motorized bikes on those trails will create a "slippery slope" that will lead to future problems with managing those trails.
Bernhardt referred to the controversy in his August order.
Uncertainty about the regulatory status of e-bikes has led the Federal land management agencies to impose restrictive access policies treating e-bikes as motor vehicles, often inconsistent with State and local regulations for adjacent areas. The possibility that in some cases e-bikes can be propelled solely through power provided by the electric motor, a function often used in short duration by older or disabled riders as an assist, has contributed to confusion about e-bike classification. Further, Federal regulation has not been consistent across the Department and has served to decrease access to Federally owned lands by e-bike riders.
There are three "classes" of eBikes:
* Class 1: eBikes that are pedal-assist only, with no throttle, and have a maximum assisted speed of 20 mph.
* Class 2: eBikes that also have a maximum speed of 20 mph, but are throttle-assisted.
* Class 3: eBikes that are pedal-assist only, with no throttle, and a maximum assisted speed of 28 mph.
On Tuesday, a release from the Interior Department said that, "A majority of states have adopted e-bike policies, which primarily have followed model legislation allowing for three classes of e-bikes to have access to bicycle trails. The DOI e-bike guidance seeks to provide consistency with the state and local rules where possible."
“Millions of Americans want to bike on our public lands and pedal assist bikes can facilitate the effort of those whose age, fitness level, or disability limits their interest. E-bikes can help make our parks, refuges, and public lands accessible to them, providing opportunities to explore areas of the great outdoors that were previously unreachable,” said Secretary Bernhardt. “Where possible and appropriate, we want to accommodate bicycling and the enjoyment of our public lands.”
Now the Interior secretary wants the Park Service to "begin the longer term process of obtaining public input on new regulations that will clarify that low-speed e-bikes should enjoy the same access as conventional bicycles, consistent with other federal and state laws."
The guidance to superintendents and field managers will enable visitors to use these bicycles with a small electric motor (less than 1 horsepower) power assist in the same manner as traditional bicycles, Interior's release said. Similar to traditional bicycles, e-bikes are not allowed in designated wilderness areas and may not be appropriate for back-country trails. The focus of the guidance is on expanding the traditional bicycling experience to those who could benefit from the reduction of effort provided by this new e-bike technology.
Comments
Hard to argue with the actual reasonableness of those last four paragraphs in the article but I am sure the people on here will any way. lol :)
Lets think about it reasonably... how do you get public comment on something you dont allow on the trail? You dont. What you do get is what was brought up originally when all the horseback riders and hikers decided they didnt want to share the trail, in other words you only get oneside of the argument. How would ebike riders or normal pedestrians comment on their experience from trail usage when they arent allowed to use it?
The fact is that almost all negetaive critisism of ebikes has been from people who have never rode one.... and know nothing about them....
Doug, here's the problem with allowing the practice before studying it: Imagine if the Park Service did the same thing with every other management decision; if it let phone companies install miles of cable into parks and across sensitive areas, and then looked at the impacts instead of analyzing the potential impacts first. Or if it allowed roads to be blazed into new areas of parks before considering the impacts.
Certainly, eBikes won't have the same impacts as new road construction or installing WiFi systems. But what impacts will they have?
In Cleveland, Ohio, a member of a mountain bike club told NPR that Cuyahoga Valley National Park's mountain bike trails weren't designed for heavier and possibly faster eBikes.
Park officials at Cuyahoga acknowledged to NPR that there's a knowledge gap:
"We, at this time, don't have enough data to be able to answer the question, 'Is an e-mountain bike different than a traditional mountain bike?' as far as impact on the trail or on resources," said Pamela Barnes, public information officer for Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
There very well could be unintended consequences of allowing a new practice in the parks before being proactive in examining possible impacts.
Kurt is right about the standard government way: study and accept public comments before making a change.
But there's another way: determine the goals or metrics, the alternatives, then explicitly obtain data by implementing a temporary, experimental change.
If you're pretty sure that allowing dogs on some trails will resort in feces not picked up by owners and foxes & other wildlife avoiding the area due to dog scent, collect some data, allow the change as experimental policy for a month, and get data to see just how bad those downsides are. If the downsides appear modest, go through the rulemaking & public comment process to allow dogs. If not modest, you have solid data to defend continuing the prohibition.
This only works if the impacts are transient, not permanent, and the change doesn't involve massive investment like cell towers that can't be undone.
For eBikes, most potential impacts are transient and there isn't massive irreversable investment. But alas, the directive from on high wasn't about "perform the experiment" or allow on a trial basis, it was "make it so". Few if any parks will be collecting the data to quantify impacts (not just on resources and trail conditions, but on visitor satisfaction both positive & negative): they see no benefit to the data and don't have the personnel to spare to collect the data. And parks administrations that _do_ allocate the effort to collect data may be more likely driven by blanket bans, not by distinguishing which trails should and should not allow which eBikes.
Study and seek public comment first, as long established, then if legally compatible, maybe change a regulation. Full disclosure: I'm a retired national park ranger.
Kurt
You make a very solid point and I can completely understand your concerns and I of course would never want to see that, but as you mentioned this is a different situation (at least in my opinion). IMHO, in this particular case (and this has nothing to do with the laws or regulations of the NPS), given the "limitted" impact, I think you would get a much better study based on actual usage (or at least in trial areas, which is basically what many parks have done). But thats just my opinion and clearly not yours, or others, and I hope you can respect that.
I respect your opinion that you and others feel that they arent following the guidelines. I can see why it makes sense with the actual wording of the regulations. I feel slightly differently because I believe that if you apply some reasonableness and commonsense to the interpretation of the regulations you can come up with a much better conclusion.
The actual regulations prohibit motorized vehicles. Do I think this is reasonable or prudent? no. Electric wheelchairs and segways have been allowed to help handicapped people enjoy public lands. The original rule was written when most of these forms of transportation didnt exist. But many people (not all) will use the use the "rules" to try to exclude others or from having to share the trail. If you think thats not happening, I would disgree with you. These are public lands, do we really want to cut new trails for ebikes or wouldnt it be better to share. I can gaurantee the same people who dont want to have ebikes on the current trails wont want them to have their own trails either.
Consider mountain bikes in NPS lands.
The same people had huge problems with allowing mountain bikes on NPS lands years ago.
They used the same arguments.
Now for the most part the peacefully coexist.
A lot of wasted time and resources could have been eliminated with some reasonableness and trial situations, and in the end thats basically what was done.
We see the exact same thing from mountain bikers today. Evidently, now its there turn to not want to share the trail with others. They argue about cheating, trail damage, inexperienced riders, etc, etc, etc.... dont be fooled, these are the same guys taking a gondola to the top. And, even if there not, all those myths have been debunked or are the exact same things that regular riders need to observe. If you are an inexperienced rider on a regular bike or ebike you need to know your abilities. "A mans gotta know his limitations" to quote the great Clint Eastwood. That has nothing to do with the bike, thats a "rider" issue.....
I read the same article you read on NPR, https://www.npr.org/2019/10/21/771858867/national-parks-trying-to-get-a-...
You will also see a lot of quotes in the article from very reasonable people who disagree with this persons assesment
But I completely agree with you that people dont understand enough about it. Unfortunately, they seem to have the loudest voice...
People and articles talk about the "noise" of an ebike in one sentence and then call them "silent killers" in another. :)
They argue about "motor" but have no Idea that motorized wheel chairs and scooters are already allowed for some situations. ( I doubt that extensive studies were done on these either, but I think reasonableness won out. Of course you cant compare these to ebikes but thats the problem with the whole "motor" argument)
The real problem I have is, not with wanting to be careful, its with the alarmist nature of these things. We live in a world full of people trying to use whatever avenue possible to "sway" opinion to there particular bias. I have repeatedly said that this issue is about safety and impact. I feel like as an experienced ebike rider that I could absolutely debate the true issues better than most on here, but sadly that not what most people are looking for.
You say that the issue here is about "what impacts will they have?" I am glad you feel that way, because I feel the same.
I just dont believe that for 90% of people on here thats the issue... :(
Well said and said much better than me. :)
Doug--
My point above (which needed editing for clarity: sorry) is that while there _is_ a pathway for performing the experiment even under government & NPS planning policies, that pathway isn't as simple as making the change and seeing what happens. It can't be done willy-nilly or seat of the pants. It requires thinking through what metrics matter and can be measured (also required for the trail planning and visitor carrying capacity processes), defining reversable experimental changes, and if possible making them in parts of the park but not in other parts so A/B testing (or BACI if you're old-school) can give better estimates of effects due to the management. That all has to be documented before the experimental management change. Then, staff have to collect the metric data, and someone has to analyze it. While some superintendents could do that, many couldn't, and some would give me a blank stare if I tried to explain it to them. And even the superintendents who could do that tend to have other, much higher priority management issues to understand and address than dogs or eBikes.
In fact, what I wrote above about obtaining data about impacts of dogs on additional trails didn't happen. I respect the superintendent in that park, and she even took more graduate statistics classes than I did back in the day. She somewhat agreed in principle, but she didn't do that experiment. Other natural and cultural resource issues were higher priorities for both her time and her small park staff's time, and there are only so many hours in the week.
Circling back, the order from on high was to change the baseline to eBikes everywhere other bikes are allowed, putting the onus of the above data collection on the park if they think they need to prohibit eBikes in some areas. If parks don't have sufficient staff, they can't justify closures. And even if they have the staff, performing an experiment by temporarily closing an area to an allowed activity is much harder to get approved than temporarily opening an area. Because of this edict, hard data to inform better management decisions is even less likely.
The analog of letting access to a mode of bike compared with 'building infrastructure' does not hold up. Those are not comparable and undermine your argument. Overall Ebikes are bikes from the perspective of the damage they do to trails and other's peace. This has been studied extensively around the world by many organziations. ... They don't damage trails any more than regular bikes and with proper speed limits, etc cause no loss to others tranquility as they are silent. Most people who don't want them around are driven by their ego, from my perspective.