E-bikes are here to stay — that’s the message of a new National Park Service study of whether it should allow motorized bicycles on its paths and trails.
Although many environmentalists have championed e-bike use, holding them up as a potential climate solution and the future of clean transportation in car-choked cities, some have been less enthusiastic about their presence on public lands. In 2019, when the Trump administration ordered park superintendents to allow e-bikes on trails where regular bikes were permitted, a coalition of conservation groups filed a lawsuit, asking the courts to require the National Park Service to study the issue.
The agency backed away from its e-bike mandate, making them optional. Its final analysis, made public Friday, affirmed this earlier decision, finding that allowing e-bikes within the national park system had no significant effects.
That leaves interested riders with a patchwork of rules, said Rachel Fussell, senior manager of recreation policy for PeopleForBikes, a bicycle advocacy group and trade association. “But I think it’s trending towards opening up access.”
Why are e-bikes in national parks controversial?
Many environmentalists and outdoor enthusiasts love e-bikes. Like e-bike advocates, they say that e-bikes are an ideal way to reduce the car traffic and overcrowded parking lots that have plagued some of the most popular parks. But they don’t want them everywhere.
At the heart of the disagreements is the backcountry — the quietest, most unspoiled and often most difficult to access places in the national park system. Conservation groups fear that these remote trails will become overrun by bikers who would previously not have attempted them under their own power, but may be emboldened by the assist of an electric motor. They prefer the Bureau of Land Management’s approach of requiring e-bike riders to keep to roads and trails used by off-road vehicles.
“What we’re concerned about is safety and conflicts and changing the backcountry,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. E-bikes can go faster than 20 mph, depending on how they are classified, and the prospect of a biker encountering hikers or wild animals at that speed has conservationists like Brengel worried.
