No for now No for now (September 09, 2005)

Pleasanton PD says, please, no scooters
by Carol Bogart

Envisioning dogs off leash chasing after scooters, scooters getting tangled up in extended leashes, and neighbors whose homes back up to trails causing "a little bit of a fuss," the city's Trails Committee has tabled a proposal to allow electric bikes and scooters on trails currently designated "pedal-power only."

Management analyst Fan Ventura said the issue isn't handicapped-accessibility. Whether to allow motorized wheelchairs hasn't been discussed, she said. The issue is whether to open trails - paved ones only - to electric bikes and scooters. She said it's believed they are less noisy than their gas-powered cousins.

The Parks Department is keeping an eye on a study being done by UC Berkeley in Pleasant Hill that's designed to find out whether people would be more willing to use BART if they could travel from home to parking lot on electric bicycles, she said. Periodically, Ventura checks in with East Bay Regional Parks to see how that experiment's going and reports back to the Trails Committee.

In the meantime, though, the idea to let electric "conveyances" on trails designated "non-motorized vehicles only" was viewed with a jaundiced eye by the Pleasanton Police, Ventura said. Stating opposition to the idea, the police told the Trails Committee of their concerns. One concern was how to allocate manpower to monitor the situation - to make sure, for example, that a scooter was powered by a battery, not by gasoline.

Another concern was the reaction of those who live along the trails. Ventura said dogs off leash stirring up neighborhood dogs already generate complaints. The committee discussed how a motorized vehicle buzzing by could exacerbate that problem, or just be a noise nuisance in itself.

Ventura points out that trails run close to houses and any proposed change in use would mean holding public hearings. Those already using the trails, she thinks, might object as well.

"People do walk the trails for a little bit of peace away from traffic," said Ventura. So, for now, the suggestion is on a back burner as the Trails Committee turns its attention to other things.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.