Popularity of electric bikes spurs conversations about safety on Naperville streets
Naperville should address potential traffic safety issues as more people take to city streets on electric bikes, according to a study from a group studying bikeability and walkability in the city.
The report presented to the full Transportation Advisory Board on Thursday was a joint effort with members of TAB, city staff and the Naperville Environmental and Sustainability Task force, or NEST.
Thomas Craighead, of NEST, said e-bikes have been growing in popularity in recent years.
He said a few years ago, e-bikes weren’t available in most retail stores. Now 25 stores in and near Naperville sell e-bikes, and five sell them exclusively.
Electric bikes, Craighead said, are opening the door to more folks pursuing cycling outdoors.
He said studies show 75% of manual bicyclists are men. Yet for e-bikes the ratio is 55% male and 45% female, as more women are taking up the sport.
In addition, the motor assist provided by e-bikes provides a new exercise option for adults who struggle with pedaling up hills or think they are too old to ride a regular bike.
Craighead said in conversations with a councilwoman earlier that day, she said her sister and brother-in-law are in their 80s and they’re excited about their e-bikes.
“They’re out there on e-bikes where before they thought they were done biking, so it really does expand the population,” he said.
From a sustainability standpoint, e-bikes are an alternative for getting around because the carbon footprint is minuscule compared to cars on the street.
An e-bike, Craighead said, produces a quarter of an ounce of carbon dioxide per mile from charging the battery with electric power, which is roughly 50 times less than the carbon dioxide produced by a gas-powered passenger vehicle.
Their power and speed, he said, also make commuting to work or school or running errands more practical than regular bikes.
Based on the report, Craighead said Naperville should be working toward becoming known as pedestrian- and cycling-friendly, like Fort Collins, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon, which often are cited as comparable cities.
“They’re really leaving us in the dust as far as cycling and walking,” he said.
Craighead said resources like the parks and forest preserves sometimes are underestimated and undersold. “There’s a lot there, but we can do more,” he said.
What can be done, he said, might be collaborating with e-bike businesses and the Naperville Police Department to promote safe-riding by offering training on the use of e-bikes and on cycling regulations.
While there’s little evidence to prove e-bikes are more dangerous, Craighead said “it just feels to me intuitively that we need to work on making sure that people get good training on their bikes before they get on them and endanger themselves and other people.”
While an e-bike looks like a manual bike, he said the difference is in a battery-powered drive unit that engages, allowing riders to hit speeds in excess of 20 mph, faster than the average physically fit cyclist on a road bike who can achieve 18 mph.
Turning corners or banking curves at 20 mph, he said, is much different from the average person’s leisure ride around the neighborhood or along a bike trail.
People also need to learn the laws governing e-bikes, Craighead said.
State laws allow people to ride bicycles on sidewalks, unless otherwise posted — like the signs that prohibit riding bikes on the Riverwalk or on sidewalks in downtown Naperville.
One concern the city could address, he said, is with pedal-assist class 3 e-bikes that have the ability to reach speeds of 28 mph, faster than 25 mph speed limits of most residential streets.
The state already prohibits riding a class 3 bike on sidewalks, and they can’t be ridden on bike trails owned by the Naperville Park District and forest preserve districts throughout Northern Illinois.
Riders also must be at least 16 years old to legally ride a class 3 e-bike.
Because pedal-assisted class 1 and throttle-based class 2 e-bikes top out at 20 mph, they are allowed on bike trails and can be operated by any age.
Traffic safety on the roadways could be exacerbated by a rising number of e-bikes on the roads, Craighead said.
“The more people that are biking and the further they go, the more encounters they’re likely to have in intersections with traffic and pedestrians too,” he said.
Naperville police Sgt. Derek Zook said of the 15,000 crashes reported to police over the last five years, 199 involved pedestrians and 150 involved bikes.
The reports, however, do not differentiate between e-bikes and any other bikes, Zook said.
Craighead said he’d ridden from his home to the Naper Boulevard library branch, Trader Joe’s or downtown Naperville.
“But on both of those occasions, the last quarter mile or so I’ve got to get on the sidewalk because most of our shopping areas, our business areas, our business parks are surrounded on purpose by more of arterials and collectors — fast roads,” Craighead said. “Those roadways are incompatible with having a lot of bicycles out there trying to share the road with cars.”
Grant funding is available, he said, to help Naperville improve people’s ability to walk and bike, and the city could collaborate with other government entities to create a broader trails network.
