need input- the loop guidelines tucson,az

[vincent]

i ride the loop a lot here and fast road bikers are really unsafe and there are a lot of them
Yesterday i was trying to find the speed limit for the loop and fell down a rabbit hole of research trying to find that and came across the official wording on the site about the ban on ebikes

to say i was shocked would be an understatement

the pima county people are REALLY REALLY anti ebike
the city of tucson and city of oro valley have passed laws/ordinances? that say the ebikes are legal on their sections
but pima says on theirs that this is not true- their stance is they overule both cities and say they are actively going to try and get laws passed to make ebikes illegal everywhere

i really thought since it was never enforced and that literally every ride out there 35-50% of the bikes any given day are ebikes that they were not enforcing it and moving toward allowing them
this could not be further from the truth

what is crazy is if you look at the loop fb page there was an announcement in june saying ebikes are illegal on the loop- there are hundreds of comments and 98% of them were in support of ebikes, even from people that dont ride but walk etc on the loop, they all said ebikes are fine it is the road bikers!!
another crazy thing is in 2019 they also wrote out another announcement about them being illegal and again hundreds of comments and it was 98% in favor of ebikes which surprised me

wrote some of the news organizations here and so far one has contacted me

i think doing a change.org petition is maybe a good idea but wondering what to call it- would like suggestions

also wondering how to get things changed at the county level, we managed to get red light cameras banned here with some kind of ballot - voted them out
i dont know what the legal angles are to try and force a change- any retired lawyers that could help with input on that please

the way this is worded reads to me that if a road biker hits me doing 25-30 miles an hour through here that no matter what i am legally liable because i am not supposed to be on the loop anywhere
it is not a matter of getting tickets which they say they are going to do, i dont care about a ticket
i do care about a lawsuit
i feel like the county is waiting for there to be any accident involving an ebike and use it an example for banning us

this seems like a slam dunk for any accident lawyer wanting to make money, no matter what happened we are liable

i am super upset my tax money is going to be used for pima county to fight the city of tucson about this
we must have a big group of road bikers who are anti ebike in the management of the loop

 

[vincent]

not sure i am allowed to copy and paste off a county website, says at the bottom is copyrighted

so to find the paragraph that scares me go to FAQ- user etiquette and guidelines
either they have changed this or it is more hidden and not the info i have seen posted in other spots like the bolton video etc

the_loop

hope that link works

what is crazy is i wish they would have a speed limit, we definitely need a speed limit on a the loop, so safety is not the goal here, it is strictly anti ebike bias

we have road bikers that come here to train in the winter, they are way too fast on the loop, often in big groups

i did 46 miles on the loop yesterday, would guess 35-40% of the bikes i passed were ebikes

the ONLY dangerous or fast bikes i saw were road bikers, yet there is no speed limit???
this tells me all the people in charge here are road bikers

they want us off the loop so they have less traffic but want to go as fast as they want

 

[EMGX]

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[EMGX]

Maybe the bike rental place noted in the post above can give you some helpful information as well as https://tucsonloop.org/tucsonloop-guide-faq/#:~:text=Are e-bikes legal on,pedal assist, you are fine.

 

[vincent]

yeah i will try and stop in there and talk to them

but my guess is they are going by the city rules which the county does not recognize
and the thing is the city part of the loop does not encompass anywhere near the 130 miles advertised here

and i am guessing all people renting bikes are signing forms saying they hold the liability etc but not sure how many people realize what they are signing...

i feel like the county is either waiting on an ebike accident so they can say - see they are dangerous
or trying to keep all this quiet while they change the law/ordinances in the background and make it harder for us to stop it

you see a lot of different info on the loop like this that you posted above

what i am going off is the actual county website for the loop

it is all fishy and underhanded and feels like there will be no clarification until some poor soul gets sued

will talk to this rental bike shop and see what they say, there are at least 2 bike shops renting ebikes on the loop, maybe they are trying to take legal action behind the scenes

 

[Tars Tarkas]

i am super upset my tax money is going to be used for pima county to fight the city of tucson about this
we must have a big group of road bikers who are anti ebike in the management of the loop

I used to dabble in politics and I learned over and over that what makes sense and even what the majority of people want isn't how political decisions are made. It's way more about who makes the most noise. It can be a lot of work and a significant commitment, but the best way to get what you want politically is to get as many other people as you can to stand with you and to let the political decision makers know how you feel. The vast majority of people in any area don't care or even know anything about road bikes vs ebikes. What will end up happening depends on how many road bikers vs how many ebikers show up at meetings, write letters, cajole (lobby) aldermen, commissioners, legislators, etc.

Everybody feels like their side is right and they may even have objectively good points. It is possible for both sides to win, but you have to play the game to get results. You're going to have to get political. That can be a good thing, believe it or not. A lot of unforeseen benefits can come from people getting together to work on a goal.

I like your idea about speed limits. The question of how they'd be enforced will come up and it's a good question. I wish it wasn't necessary, but i kind of wish simple good behavior and consideration for others could be legislated and enforced.

Good luck!

TT

 

[vincent]

i totally agree on everything you said

thinking to get the change.org petition to drum up noise for starters

here is my thing about enforcement
they say ebikes are not allowed but they dont enforce that at all, in fact you never see police or security of any type on the loop, i have never have

so if the speed limit issue is because they dont want to pay for enforcement it is the same deal with ebikes
but all the ebikes are carrying a ton of liability that most probably are not aware of

the fast road bike people seem to have no liability

none of this is about safety and if it was there would be a speed limit

i am fine with road bikers and the faster they can go on the road and keep up with the cars the better, but you cannot ride like that on the loop
it is incredibly busy

i rode 46 miles yesterday and was completely surprised at how the more rural southeast sections around rita road were crazy busy middle of the day, more bikes than i have ever seen on a ride
then i rode through the middle of town and back and saw less people/bikes etc??
so the theory that there are sections that are safe to ride fast is not true


another thing i noticed yesterday is the sections more southeast i think they tried to make it prettier and weaved the path around everywhere, a ton of blind corners, the rest of the loop if you are flying you can at least see in front of you down a long straightaway
now that section seems rural but is blind everywhere with bushes/trees etc

we came across a group of road bikes going the opposite direction, probably 6 bikes bunched up - fast, minimum 20mph probably 25
there is no way at all for them to see what is around the corner, they will never get stopped for a dog walker etc
scared the crap out of my friend riding with me, they came flying around the corner in front of us and i could not see them either until they were flying by
if they swerved to miss someone and hit me i am liable, this is insane

have a very hard time believing any bike shop in tucson is going to support an ebike ban, to my knowledge there are zero shops in tucson not selling ebikes now, so i am not sure who is supporting this

i will keep this up to date

ask that everyone post on the loop FB page and call pima county to complain etc
but am going to do my best to make some noise and try to find out how we can force some change

 

[vincent]

if you come to tucson to ride try to stay in the tucson city limits or oro valley for liability reasons

you have to go through pima county sections to get to the oro valley parts

i am not sure about marana, which has a big section
but am trying to find out

 

[bigb]

Following....I ride every day Aviation East to Palo Verde to Kino Sports Complex to the Julian Greenway. Throughout the ride I go from city to county to city again. More ebikes than not. What can they say if you ride an ebike but don't use the power? I only use the power to climb the steep grades up out of the wash and over the rail yard but I could leave it off while outside the city limits. Also is there any mention of the difference between those with a throttle and those without? Seems they want us to be greener but not letting us on the bikeway looks like there are some road bikers working at the county. Can't even get a cop to show up unless it's a murder and they want to waste resources on this? I called 911 earlier in the week because a car lost control on Aviation and came up over the curb and landed on the chain link fence along the bikeway, it rang for 2 minutes with no answer.
Riding in the bike lane on the major streets is too risky with all the distracted drivers drifting into it while looking at their phones.
They said gas powered bikes aren't allowed in the bike lanes either but that doesn't stop them.

 

[vincent]

Sounds like you should be in the city section which hopefully gives you some more legal protection if there is ever a problem

It has nothing to do with what class of bike you are riding, all electric bikes are illegal as far as the county is concerned

The whole thing is ridiculous and I totally agree must be a bunch of road bikers that work for the county
The only dangerous riders I have seen on the loop over and over again have been road bikers but somehow they need no restrictions

have never seen police of any type on the loop so in theory they are not enforcing it but worry it’s just a matter of time before there is an accident and a lawsuit

My experience has also been that easily 30 to 40% of the bikes on the loop are electric…


I do want to start a change.org petition but I’ve just been tied up with work and can’t focus on it right now

 

[bigb]

I'm not too worried, I always slow down around pedestrians and other bikes and very careful to keep watch behind with 2 mirrors. With the resources available I can't see much if any enforcement but like you said the biggest risk is probably the liability. I'd still like to know what they say about e-bikes with the power turned off. I guess it would still be an e-bike and e-bikes are not allowed. BTW I have looked at some of the signage and haven't seen the rule, I'll have to take a look tomorrow.

 

[vincent]

It is very hard to find, it is listed on the main Pima County Loop website page

You have to go down to user etiquette and guidelines
And then go to can I ride my electric bicycle on the loop

Unless they have changed the signs the only thing I think it says is that you cannot have motorized vehicles which of course electric bikes are not by federal and state statute

 

[bigb]

It is very hard to find, it is listed on the main Pima County Loop website page

You have to go down to user etiquette and guidelines
And then go to can I ride my electric bicycle on the loop

Unless they have changed the signs the only thing I think it says is that you cannot have motorized vehicles which of course electric bikes are not by federal and state statute

Yes I saw that on the signs and I saw what you are referencing under the guidelines. If you want to start a petition I suggest getting the retailer involved, they are the ones with the most to lose and they have the most resources when it comes to funding and people.

 

[bigb]

Enforcement will likely be done only on a complaint basis, just like Parkwise will not come into neighborhoods to look for violations unless a complaint is filed, or the neighborhood association agrees to regular patrols.

 

[Hogstir]

There is no Park Dept Rule, no County ordinance or statute that bans E Bikes on the Loop. It’s an underground regulation that only appears in their Loop Guidelines And on their signs.
Guidelines are suggestions and NOT legally enforceable. The Parks dept NEVER got Board of Supervisors approval to ban E Bikes, never passed a park rule banning E Bikes etc.
Checking with the County Attorneys office and a Sheriffs Deputy the only thing they could possibly cite you with is Trespassing if a Park Employee tells you to leave and you refuse.
The County claims they banned E Bikes for safety reasons but but never did any studies showing that E Bikes pose anymore risk than a regular bike and admit that they never try to enforce the “guideline” even though there are hundreds of E Bike riders on the Loop everyday.
Likewise in a study the County did among Loop users, the number one safety complaint among users was bicycles going too fast, yet the County who is so concerned for safety never passed any kind of speed limit.

 

[ArizonaWildBill]

I find it interesting that MANY federal dollars were spent on the loop and the feds say ebikes are to be treated as bikes (non-motorized vehicles) and they are allowed in National Parks etc. but not Pima County who took the money to build it. The state and Tucson governments acknowledge this also.
Let me say that over the years I met and became aware of the bicycling cultures that exist as part of that crowd. Roadies hate recumbents or anything else for that matter. They are likely the reason behind the ban as the powers that be, right to the top, are roadies. Its not about safety as the roadies go way too fast and are the ones who are unsafe. But when that group includes the highly powerful in the county, well, you see why they are banned. It makes the county look foolish frankly... After riding many hundreds of miles on the Loop with uprights and recumbents...now I am banned from riding due to a small magnetic assist e-bike? Seniors can most benefit from an e-bike and are the biggest victims here folks. And what about the issue of transportation? Pima County is way behind the times and it is embarrassing to say the least. Now e-bikes are forced onto the streets to be killed. I was a roadie...believe me. Other paths enforce speed limits and write tickets. My guess is the roadies would not like this either and it is extremely rare on the Loop.

 

[Hogstir]

I find it interesting that MANY federal dollars were spent on the loop and the feds say ebikes are to be treated as bikes (non-motorized vehicles) and they are allowed in National Parks etc. but not Pima County who took the money to build it. The state and Tucson governments acknowledge this also.
Let me say that over the years I met and became aware of the bicycling cultures that exist as part of that crowd. Roadies hate recumbents or anything else for that matter. They are likely the reason behind the ban as the powers that be, right to the top, are roadies. Its not about safety as the roadies go way too fast and are the ones who are unsafe. But when that group includes the highly powerful in the county, well, you see why they are banned. It makes the county look foolish frankly... After riding many hundreds of miles on the Loop with uprights and recumbents...now I am banned from riding due to a small magnetic assist e-bike? Seniors can most benefit from an e-bike and are the biggest victims here folks. And what about the issue of transportation? Pima County is way behind the times and it is embarrassing to say the least. Now e-bikes are forced onto the streets to be killed. I was a roadie...believe me. Other paths enforce speed limits and write tickets. My guess is the roadies would not like this either and it is extremely rare on the Loop.

The former County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry ( whom the loop is named after) and his chief deputy Martin Willet were both big time roadies and involved in cycling orgs. So you can guess where the county got the idea to ban E bikes. Both of them, in fact, were seriously injured in bicycle accidents while riding in bike lanes on public streets. Willet sued the county claiming that they had failed to maintain the bike lanes properly making them unsafe. The County made a multi million dollar settlement with him Yet they want to relegate the older folks with E bikes to those same unsafe lanes.

 

[TucsonLoopORG]

i ride the loop a lot here and fast road bikers are really unsafe and there are a lot of them
Yesterday i was trying to find the speed limit for the loop and fell down a rabbit hole of research trying to find that and came across the official wording on the site about the ban on ebikes

to say i was shocked would be an understatement

the pima county people are REALLY REALLY anti ebike
the city of tucson and city of oro valley have passed laws/ordinances? that say the ebikes are legal on their sections
but pima says on theirs that this is not true- their stance is they overule both cities and say they are actively going to try and get laws passed to make ebikes illegal everywhere

i really thought since it was never enforced and that literally every ride out there 35-50% of the bikes any given day are ebikes that they were not enforcing it and moving toward allowing them
this could not be further from the truth

what is crazy is if you look at the loop fb page there was an announcement in june saying ebikes are illegal on the loop- there are hundreds of comments and 98% of them were in support of ebikes, even from people that dont ride but walk etc on the loop, they all said ebikes are fine it is the road bikers!!
another crazy thing is in 2019 they also wrote out another announcement about them being illegal and again hundreds of comments and it was 98% in favor of ebikes which surprised me

wrote some of the news organizations here and so far one has contacted me

i think doing a change.org petition is maybe a good idea but wondering what to call it- would like suggestions

also wondering how to get things changed at the county level, we managed to get red light cameras banned here with some kind of ballot - voted them out
i dont know what the legal angles are to try and force a change- any retired lawyers that could help with input on that please

the way this is worded reads to me that if a road biker hits me doing 25-30 miles an hour through here that no matter what i am legally liable because i am not supposed to be on the loop anywhere
it is not a matter of getting tickets which they say they are going to do, i dont care about a ticket
i do care about a lawsuit
i feel like the county is waiting for there to be any accident involving an ebike and use it an example for banning us

this seems like a slam dunk for any accident lawyer wanting to make money, no matter what happened we are liable

i am super upset my tax money is going to be used for pima county to fight the city of tucson about this
we must have a big group of road bikers who are anti ebike in the management of the loop

Ebike usage is quite the popular topic of discussion when it comes to The TucsonLoop!

While Pima County has had "rules" against ebikes from the get go, they were never, ever enforced. Ebike usage on the Tucson Loop is HUGE and Vincent is correct that there are ebike rental operations on The Loop including TucsonBicycleRentals.com and others. The "rules" of Pima County might have meant well, but they became passe - irrelevant. Tucson Police never enforced them at all. TPD is regularly on the Tucson Loop with ebikes. In fact, one of the rental players even told me TPD helped an elderly customer fix a flat tire on her disabled ebike! Now that is customer service on behalf of the police!

Good info here...

Are e-bikes/ebikes/electric bikes legal on Tucson Loop bike path?

Tucson Loop e-bike popularity continues to grow! Yes! Electric bikes (e-bikes) are very popular on The Tucson Loop. As long as they are pedal assist, e-bikes are legal on The Tucson Loop . More than 25 percent of Tucson Loop bicycle traffic is pedal assist. Gas powered or any motorized bike that...

tucsonloop.org

I think petitions to change the rules are a waste of time. Ebike usage on The Tucson Loop is alive and very well. Ride safe!!
Marc Taylor