The Honolulu City Council wants to adopt a measure to regulate the possession and use of electric bicycles on Oahu by this Christmas.
Council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, a co-sponsor of Bill 52 that seeks to revise city laws surrounding e-bikes, also wants to ensure that when parents purchase e-bikes for their young children that they’re aware of the potential use and safety regulations that will affect e-bike riders as well as the public at large.
“I bet a lot of kids are going to be getting e-bikes for Christmas,” he said during the Council’s meeting Wednesday, “so we want to make sure that we have some rules in place, sooner rather than later.”
He also claimed the proposed legislation will help the Honolulu Police Department better enforce e-bike regulations.
“And more importantly, I think it creates community expectations about who can ride an e-bike,” Dos Santos- Tam said. “If you’re 12 years old, you should not be driving down the middle of King Street without a helmet, when you can’t even get a driver’s permit to do the same thing in a car or a moped.”
Currently, Hawaii law states all kids under age 16 must wear a helmet while riding a bicycle. A person must be at least 15 years old to ride a “low-speed electric bicycle” registered to an adult household member.
An approved e-bike bill at the city level, the Council asserts, also plays into related measures which may emerge from the state Legislature early next year.
But at the meeting some on the Council grew concerned when HPD requested to “defer” Bill 52 for further study.
That request comes as a new working group — led by the city Department of Transportation Services and other city- and state-level agencies as well as the advocacy group, the Hawaii Bicycling League — has begun its review of helmet rules, age restrictions and other legal issues pertaining to e-bike use on public streets, according to the city.
The group has met once, but it plans to meet again in what are deemed nonpublic, “internal” city meetings.
“We’re currently working with the DTS and Director (Roger) Morton,” HPD acting Capt. Michael Campbell told the Council. “Last month, we had our first meeting with the (state Department of Transportation) and DTS.”
“And we have a lot of work to do, regarding laws for electric bicycles and motor vehicles,” he said. “So if we could defer this that would be great.”
“We’d just like to give the working group a chance to put together some applicable laws and have a direction,” he added. “As we saw there is a lot of concern through the communities. Technology is moving very rapidly and our laws need to catch up.”
But Council member Andria Tupola queried “what is the length of time that DTS and HPD is asking for” under the requested deferral.
“Is it months? Is it a year? Are you guys going to finish it in a week?” she asked. “I mean we had talked about this a few years ago actually, and DTS had already worked on draft rules. How much time are you guys estimating?”
Campbell replied, “I wouldn’t like to give a specific time frame.”
“However, we had our first meeting, and are scheduled to have a second meeting here in the near future. So maybe a year,” he added.
Later, DTS Deputy Director Jon Nouchi clarified the city’s support for Bill 52 was to move forward quickly.
“We think that there’s a lot of discussion left to have but we do have opportunities to do that,” he said. “DTS intends with the task force to have two more meetings.”
He added the city also would like to have “some outreach with the private sector.”
“To make sure those that are selling what we may classify as an e-bike are doing it in a responsible manner, and that there are procedures for registration and other responsible actions that are tied to those,” he said.
He noted Bill 52 — which defines an e-bike as “a bicycle equipped with fully- operable pedals, a saddle or seat for the rider, and an electric motor of less than 750 watts,” while their motors cannot allow the machines to go more than 20 mph — also seeks to better classify the e-bikes, based on operability and speed, under a three-class system.
“We first and foremostly look toward safety,” said Nouchi. “DTS stands on the safe operations on all types of vehicles” on public streets.
Still, Tupola said her main concern “is that people have died” — either while riding e-bikes or being hit by them as pedestrians on public streets and sidewalks across Oahu.
“Five days ago, King Street, another 54-year-old man (was) injured,” she said. “So I’m personally concerned about a one-year timeline.”
“And I’m not saying we rush it and do a junk job, I want it to be thorough,” she added, but “I do not want analysis paralysis, and just keep talking about this for years to come.”
In response, Nouchi said he “wanted to be clear that we didn’t set a year-long timeline for this.”
“We actually hope to have the following two meetings, and some of the outreach with the people that sell these devices much sooner than that,” he said. “So that we can follow this and track this bill through the process, through committee, and on to its final reading.”
Tupola asked, “What does your timeline look like?”
“We’d like to have this done by the end of the year,” Nouchi replied.
Council member Matt Weyer also asked about public information — including social media and digital advertisements sent to smart devices — that might be used “to get the message out quicker.”
“So parents are actually getting it,” Weyer said.
Nouchi agreed.
“Because education is very much needed in this space,” he said. “With our current laws any parent should really think about buying an e-bike for your child who is not 15. Just looking around our communities it’s a super cool toy to have, but it is not a toy, that’s the issue.”
Others from the public also addressed the issue.
Kaneohe resident Donald Sakamoto said as a blind person he’d previously recommended that the city’s e-bike working group involve the National Federation of the Blind or the Hawaii Association of the Blind to better represent Oahu’s disabled community, and give more insight to Bill 52.
“Since then I have outreached to my president, Virgil Stinnett of the National Federation of the Blind in Hawaii, to get his OK to be in the work group,” said Sakamoto, adding he’d sent emails to city officials including DTS Director Morton and city Managing Director Mike Formby “asking to be on the working group committee.”
Another testifier, Robert Gould, said “a simple solution” to regulating e-bikes is to classify them the same as mopeds, which in Hawaii requires a driver’s license to operate.
“And at least (e-bikes) are quiet, and don’t stink,” he added.
Ultimately, the Council voted unanimously to approve the second of three readings for Bill 52.
According to Dos Santos- Tam, his timeline toward finalizing this measure includes a scheduled informational briefing from the e-bike working group to the Council’s Committee on Transportation on Oct. 22.
“On Nov. 19 we’d like to take the recommendations that come from that working group as well as from the public and other members, and incorporate it into a final draft of the bill that we can consider,” he said. “And hopefully that gets us to a final product that we can pass out, ideally by the end of the year.”
Moreover, he noted the use and safe operation of other “mobility devices” — such as stand-up electric scooters — also may be taken up in related Council legislation “perhaps early next year.”
