Boulder City Council faces competing e-bike options

The Boulder City Council will take up the issue of allowing e-bikes on city open space trails, including several trails in and around Niwot and Gunbarrel, at its meeting on June 1 at 6 p.m. in the council chambers.

On February 8 the Boulder Open Space Board of Trustees (OSBT) rejected the Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) staff recommendation for the adoption of regulations to allow e-bikes on trails that are in the plains (east of Broadway and US 36). This is known as Alternative B in the list of options that were put forward and have been previously described in this newspaper. The staff recommendation is consistent with Boulder County's regulations permitting Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes on county open space trails.

The OSBT rejected the staff recommendation and sent their own incomplete recommendation to the Boulder City Council after a lengthy online meeting. The focus of arguments against the staff position was that the foundational charter for Boulder's open space allows for only "passive recreation" on open space. There was strong disagreement among the trustees about the definition of "passive recreation."

OSMP staff will present Boulder City Council with two competing options from which to choose. One draft ordinance represents the original staff recommendation of Alternative B. Staff also formulated a second draft ordinance to represent the outcome of the OSBT meeting on February 8. The city council will choose between these two options in their final decision.

The OSMP staff draft ordinance for Alternative B opens up all of the plains trails to e-bikes. This will require that the city council officially define passive recreation to include Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes, which do not provide electric assistance at speeds over 20 mph. It will also require repealing a city ordinance that prohibits e-bikes on open space trails. This ordinance would open up approximately 34 of 154 miles of Boulder open space trails to e-bikes.

The second draft ordinance representing the OSBT point of view would prohibit e-bikes on all OSMP trails except for when a multijurisdictional regional trail that meets certain criteria crosses Boulder open space. An example would likely be the LoBo (Longmont-Boulder) regional trail, which currently disallows e-bikes when the rider reaches City of Boulder open space south of Niwot at Highway 52.

However, OSMP staff has yet to determine to which lands this second draft ordinance would apply. Their cursory estimate is that this ordinance would open up 4.5 miles of Boulder open space trails to e-bikes.

The meeting will be hybrid, both in person and online. You may sign up if you wish to speak at the meeting at https://bouldercolorado.gov/services/participate-city-council-meetings. It is not apparent how to attend the meeting virtually if you do not wish to speak.