The Montgomery County Planning Board approved a plan to allow e-bikes and e-scooters on some hard-surface trails as part of a 6-month pilot. A pilot for e-bikes and e-scooters was first announced in February and this will be related to, but not necessarily a part of, that pilot
The 2019 MCDOT pilot will involve up to four commercial companies, last six months, and could be extended for an additional six months. While MCDOT’s pilot areas are still being finalized, they are mostly focused at Central Business Districts (CBDs) and in emerging Transit Oriented Development Areas. MCDOT is in the process of finalizing an MOU with these companies that spells out boundaries, hours of operations, safetytrainings, preferred docking and parking areas, data collection, etc. The date of MCDOT’s launch is still being determined but is currently planned for May 2019.
The program will not be county-wide and it appears that Bethesda and some other areas inside the Beltway will not be part of the service areas.
Parks’ pilot will launch on June 1, 2019 and have two phases. Starting June 1, Phase 1 will allow for the use of personally owned e-bikes and e-scooters of certain types on certain hard-surface trails. Phase 2 will commence as soon as Parks has entered into contractual agreements with vendors to allow commercial e-scooters and e-bikes on the same hard-surface trails. It is Parks’ intention to tailor the Phase 2 portion of Parks’ pilot to match that of the County as much as possible, and it is anticipated that Parks will enter into an arrangement with the same vendors as the County. Parks also may request a six-month or similar extension to continue to evaluate the Pilot. As much as possible, Parks’ program will run in tandem with MCDOT’s. As an example, Parks’ extension might match the termination date of MCDOT’s pilot.
The pilot trails will be Rock Creek, Matthew Henson, Sligo Creek and Northwest Branch (within MoCo) and Long Branch. The Capital Crescent Trail will not be included. In the WTOP story they claim that
The pilot does not include the Capital Crescent Trail, because the National Park Service controls the portion of that trail in the District, so users would be violating the rules if they continued their commutes on the trail in or out of the city
But since 3 of the 5 trails chosen also cross into jurisdictions that don't allow e-bikes I suspect the real reason is the the CCT is not in one of the service areas.
It will only allow Class I e-bicycles and e-scooters that operate by rechargeable battery and scooters will likely be capped at 15mph.
Capital Bikeshare has had e-bikes since September, in coordination with DDOT, but I'm not sure if they were allowed in Montgomery County or not. Regardless, they're currently out of service.
The Capital Bikeshare operator is continuing to test the ebikes and we have every intention to bring them back to the fleet. Safety comes first and will let you know as soon we have more information.
I'm generally in favor of allowing e-bikes on trails and so far the trend is that park authorities and other rulemakers are allowing them. NoVa Parks just changed their rules to allow them on their trails, on Fairfax County quickly followed suit. Virginia law allows the use of e-bikes wherever regular bicycles are allowed and DC is looking into changing their rules as well.
It's a bit unclear what the point is of a pilot program of the type here. First of all, the e-scooters and ebikes are already being used on many of these trails, with no enforcement. Second, the distinction between privately owned and rental scooters is silly--the vast majority out there are the rental ones, and they will be used on the pilot programs trails.
Posted by: Crickey | May 14, 2019 at 09:06 AM
The inclusion of the NW branch trail is a little odd. It's nearly impossible to reach the northern end of the paved portion of the trail with a bike. The southern access is from PG county. I am not sure if there are any paved access points within Montgomery Co.
Posted by: Purple Eagle | May 14, 2019 at 10:23 AM
Good point. There is only one access point in Montgomery County to the NWB Trail and that is a rough connection from Oakview Drive.
Posted by: washcycle | May 14, 2019 at 04:05 PM
Seems a bit redundant when from October 1 Maryland is supposed to permit Class 1 and 2 ebikes anywhere bicycles can travel since the state passed HB0939 http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&stab=01&id=HB0939&tab=subject3&ys=2019rs
Posted by: Dewey | May 15, 2019 at 04:23 PM
I thought that legislation still allowed counties to set rules in parks?
Posted by: Crickey | May 15, 2019 at 06:19 PM
What is unclear is whether existing ebike bans remain in place or whether now the state has redefined ebikes with Class 1 & 2 legal on bike paths and sidewalks whether localities need to rewrite their bans to justify the inequity.
Posted by: Dewey | May 17, 2019 at 04:26 PM