Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...DANVILLE — Concerned about “reckless” riding by local youths, the Danville Town Council voted to ban electric bike and scooter use in public parks and implement a speed limit on trails.
Unanimously approved Tuesday, the ban is the latest measure taken in the past two years to curb what’s become a growing safety issue in the affluent East Bay town of about 43,000 residents.
“It’s a dilemma when you mix bikes and pedestrians,” Danville City Attorney Rob Ewing said Tuesday at the meeting.
Separate bans on riding e-bike and motorized scooters on sidewalks in the business district and playgrounds were approved in 2024. The council is expected to take up a broader discussion on city riding on city sidewalks sometime in the fall.
Similar bans have been adopted across the Bay Area, including in neighboring San Ramon, San Anselmo in Marin County, and Burlingame in San Mateo County.
Though laws already exist that govern the operation of bikes, including e-bikes, Danville officials say the city is grappling with how to manage what they say is a pattern of poor behavior by minors.
The offenders are predominantly middle school aged children near Osage Station Park, nestled near Charlotte Wood Middle School, Town Manager Tai Williams said.
A recent Danville Police Department enforcement operation near the school resulted in 30 students being stopped for what Williams described as “reckless behavior,” including excessive speeds, running stop signs, or riding through people’s lawns. Of those stops, five citations were issued. To have the citation written off, both the child and their parent are required to attend a rider safety course.
Williams said the San Ramon Valley Unified School District “has been a good partner” when it comes to educating the school community on bicycle safety and laws over the past year.
Both the San Ramon and Danville police departments have been invited to station at bike corrals at middle schools beginning in the next school year but district officials were “reticent” to allow for that type of enforcement before conducting an adequate information campaign, Williams said.
“Curbing and talking to the kids at the bike corral, I think, is probably the most effective method,” Williams said. “The superintendent recognizes that by now, since he’s authorized sending out communication on e-bikes over and over again, that the folks who are continuing to do it are probably doing so willfully.”
Representatives with the school district did not speak at the meeting or immediately respond to a request for comment from this news organization.
California law breaks e-bikes into three categories: class 1 are pedal-assisted bikes that go up to 20 miles per hour, class 2 are throttle-assisted and go up to 20 miles per hour, and class 3 are pedal-assisted bikes that go up to 28 miles per hour and can only be ridden with a helmet by people ages 16 and older.
All e-bikes sold in the state are required to have a permanent label displaying the bike’s classification number, top assisted speed, and motor wattage.
Throttle bikes that go over 20 miles per hour or pedal bikes that go over 28 miles per hour are considered mopeds or motorcycles, requiring licensing and age thresholds to be legally operated in California.
“If it’s too fast, it’s not an e-bike — you might be riding illegally,” warned an April consumer alert issued by Attorney General Rob Bonta and cosigned by three Bay Area district attorneys – San Francisco’s Brooke Jenkins, San Mateo County’s Steve Wagstaffe, and Marin’s Lori Frugoli.
The use of manual and e-bikes and scooters has been encouraged in recent years as a climate-friendly alternative to driving. But the consumer alert warned retailers that mischaracterizing the bikes they sell is a crime and implored parents to be careful about the types of bikes they purchase for their children and ensure they abide by the law.
While only about 30% of bikes ridden by Bay Area children are electric two-wheel devices, a vast majority of those are actually mopeds or motorcycles, according to a December 2025 study by San Jose State University’s Mineta Transportation Institute. The study found that about 12% of electric two-wheeled devices being used by kids fell into one of the three e-bike categories. The problem is particularly acute in Danville, said Robert Mittelstaedt, a founder of Marin County e-bike advocacy nonprofit E-Bike Access, who helped gather data cited in the Mineta report.
Mittelstaedt said Danville middle schoolers are actually riding e-motorcycles. He both encouraged the city to enforce existing laws and backed the e-bike riding ban until the city could get a better handle on the issue.
“It pains me to be advocating a restriction on e-bikes. I usually advocate to expand access. I’m making an exception here because you have an e-moto problem that has not been adequately addressed,” Mittelstaedt said.
How well Danville will be able to enforce any new bans is up for debate.
Councilmembers ultimately decided to require that people get off and walk their e-bikes and e-scooters when in parks because that would be easier to monitor than speed limits. With limited police officers, they also acknowledged that it’s infeasible that law enforcement can be staged in problem areas during peak hours.
Councilmembers and city officials broadly agreed that more action at the state level would have a stronger impact on safe e-biking concerns, with Vice Mayor Robert Storer describing the city as a “paper tiger” that “really can’t do much.”
Though the future of bills governing electric bikes and scooters is still unclear, Williams said this legislative cycle has been the first time in years that those with concerns about e-bikes have felt heard.
“We all recognize that really the comprehensive solution must come from the legislature,” Williams said. “Because the last thing that any of us who ride bikes or scooters want to do is to travel through a patchwork of different ordinances from city to city.”