E-Bikes in Costa Rica

[Big Tom]

I visited Costa Rica recently and found out they are really pushing people to use e-bikes. They have added bike lanes in San Jose and just implemented a change to the import tax that allows e-bikes to be classified as electric vehicles and be tax exempt. There is actually someone in their transportation ministry that handles policy for promoting electric bikes. Costa Rica has STEEP hills that don't exist in the USA and to allow for this they have a 5000W limit for bikes.
One thing they did that is a great idea was to paint the lines and images for the bike lane in green. That made them special and people notice the lanes.

 

[ebikemom]

That is fabulous— there absolutely should be incentives for ebike ownership. Ebikes have tremendous potential to transform how we move from place to place and thus to eliminate gridlock as part of comprehensive transportation planning.

On green paint— the city of Bellevue, WA used green paint on new bike lane design on a downtown street. I’ll post some pictures.

How can we work towards ebike incentives...hmmm....

 

[Big Tom]

That is fabulous— there absolutely should be incentives for ebike ownership. Ebikes have tremendous potential to transform how we move from place to place and thus to eliminate gridlock as part of comprehensive transportation planning.

On green paint— the city of Bellevue, WA used green paint on new bike lane design on a downtown street. I’ll post some pictures.

How can we work towards ebike incentives...hmmm....

Costa Rica is working with private companies to provide cash incentives if you ride a bike to work three days a week or more. The big incentive is a quick ride to and from work. A 15 KM commute by car/bus can take 2 hours.
The problem they see there that is also here is transforming the image of a bicycle to transportation and not recreation,