E-scooters in Colorado Springs open spaces? | Outdoors | gazette.com

Features writer

E-scooters are parked in a forced parking zone in downtown Colorado Springs in June 2022.

While the debate continues over allowing e-bikes on city-owned trails in Colorado Springs — and the legal and appropriate ways to do that in well-regarded nonmotorized parks and open spaces — another electric-powered device has so far skirted around the conversation.

E-scooters were “a curveball,” said Susan Davies, executive director of the Trails and Open Space Coalition.

That was her surprised reaction to their access being included with Class 1 e-bikes in a policy proposed this month.

Those are bikes equipped with motors that provide assistance up to 20 mph while the rider is pedaling, as previously defined by the federal and state governments. E-scooters are also being defined by the city’s draft ordinance: weighing less than 100 pounds; with handlebars; with an electric motor that has “a maximum speed of 20 mph on a paved level surface when powered solely by the electric motor.”

Along with Class 1 e-bikes, those e-scooters would be allowed on all trails where other bikes are allowed, said Scott Abbott, regional parks, trails and open space manager.

“As Class 1 e-bikes go, so goes this definition of electric scooter,” Abbott said at a recent parks board meeting.

It was “something that some people don’t know,” he said, explaining the parks department’s effort to align its e-bike policy with state regulations. “Colorado state statute puts into e-bike law that municipalities cannot restrict electric scooters more stringently than Class 1 e-bikes.”

Yet several Front Range cities and counties do.

That includes Boulder County, which allows e-bikes across open space “plains trails” but bans e-scooters. In the city of Boulder, e-bikes are allowed on sidewalks, but not e-scooters. That’s the same for paved trails managed by the city of Fort Collins.

“Per my experience, there seems to be some gray area on the state laws for e-bikes and e-scooters, and the legal interpretation on whether they have to be treated the same or not,” said Dave “DK” Kemp, Fort Collins’ senior trails manager.

He traced the issue to around 2018, when companies deployed e-scooters for rent across city streets and lobbied state lawmakers for legal use. Abbott also thought about that legislation — “not really meaning to, in my assumption, or thinking that they would parlay into much singletrack riding.”

In 2018, Jeffco Open Space became an early adopter of Class 1 e-bikes on all trails where other bikes are allowed. Mary Ann Bonnell guided that process.

She recognized e-scooters as “confusing and tough to navigate.” And “the two are related in the Colorado General Assembly’s eyes,” Bonnell said.

She pointed to the following state language: “Unless otherwise restricted, Class 1 and Class 2 electric bicycles and scooters are allowed on the same bicycle and pedestrian paths as conventional bicycles.”

Key phrase, in Bonnell’s view: “Unless otherwise restricted.”

While allowing Class 1 e-bikes in Jefferson County open spaces, e-scooters have been banned. “We did not consider e-scooters, because our visitors do not want to see anything that had a throttle traveling on our natural surface trails,” Bonnell said.

With their proposal, Colorado Springs officials are limiting throttle-activated Class 2 e-bikes to urban trails. Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates Executive Director Cory Sutela wants the same for e-scooters.

“E-scooters on singletrack trails are a major change that we are not advocating for, full stop,” he said.

Talk around them specifically has been quiet while talk focuses on legal questions regarding motors in general across parks and open spaces funded by the Trails, Open Space and Parks (TOPS) program. The voter-approved ordinance for that program bans motors, according to opponents of the city’s e-bike proposal.

A supporter of the proposed e-bike policy, Ron Ramsey, called for officials to take a closer look at e-scooters.

“Those scooters are problematic and the one-wheels are too,” he said at the recent parks board meeting. “They’re harder to control than a bicycle, especially when you put them over rough terrain.”

The proposed policy could move to votes by the TOPS working committee and parks board next month, ahead of possible consideration by City Council.

Features writer