HomeMy WebLinkAbout051226-03.1 PRINZ, ROBERT1
Amanda Levine
From:Tai Williams
Sent:Tuesday, May 12, 2026 12:56 PM
To:Amanda Levine
Subject:Fwd: Danville E-Bike Safety study session - staff report
Begin forwarded message:
From: Robert Prinz <robert@bikeeastbay.org>
Date: May 12, 2026 at 12:49:22 PM PDT
To: Tai Williams <TWilliams@danville.ca.gov>
Subject: Danville E-Bike Safety study session - staff report
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Hello, I hope you are doing well.
While we were not able to participate in the Danville E-Bike Safety study session today, I
wanted to get in touch to express my thanks for the detailed staff report provided to the
Town Council.
For the section "Bike Infrastructure as a Solution", I want to clarify our position on the
issue. We are not asserting that most bike collisions are happening on arterials, or that
narrow neighborhood streets can accommodate protected bikeways. Our concern is that
individuals are increasingly riding on off-street trails or neighborhood streets and avoiding
artierals because of a lack of high-quality supportive infrastructure on those corridors.
This results in increased crowding and conflicts between users on trails. Increasing
Danville's high quality arterial bike network can help reduce these conflicts on trails and
neighborhood streets, and enable individuals on higher speed e-bikes to more reasonably
choose facilities that better support those modes.
We serve over 40 communities in the East Bay, and we are not seeing similar e-bike
conflicts universally throughout this region. The jurisdictions that are reporting the most e-
bike/e-moto issues are also the ones that have done the least to build out on-street
2
protected bikeway networks, instead remaining over-reliant on a limited off-street trails
network. The Tri-Valley region in general is behind in this regard, and Danville in particular
suffers from this issue as the town did not even recommend any Class 4 protected
bikeways in its 2021 bike plan update.
We continue to compel Danville to proactively provide more places for people to bike
safely and comfortably in order to serve the demand, and not only focus on state and local
policy restrictions.
Please also note that Assemblymember Papan's AB 1557 has been significantly edited
within the past month and the Danville staff report info on this bill is no longer accurate.
The legislation now proposes a 16 mph maximum speed cap reduction for Class 1 and
Class 2 e-bikes (down from 20 mph), and a maximum motor power of 250 watts for Class 1
and Class 2 e-bikes (down from 750 watts).
If passed, this would apply to any new e-bikes sold starting in 2027. Numerous e-bike
manufacturers and retailers have indicated that these limits would be catastrophic both
for sales as well as safety, since EU-style e-bike speeds without EU-style bike
infrastructure could subject riders to more danger, not less. These changes would only
impact already legal, compliant e-bike manufacturers and users, and not address the
primary issue of non-compliant e-moto devices exceeding state speed and power limits,
as identified by the Mineta Institute report.
Thank you,
Robert Prinz | Advocacy Director
Pronouns: he/him
Mail: PO Box 1736 Oakland, CA 94604
Office: 466 Water Street Oakland, CA 94607
P: (510) 845-7433 x5 | E: Robert@BikeEastBay.org
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