With the growing popularity of electric bikes and scooters, Drayton Valley Enforcement Services is working to educate users on what is expected of them.
Cody Rossing, the manager of enforcement services and emergency management for the Town, says that e-bikes are motorized vehicles and need to be treated as such.
“The bikes are considered a vehicle under the Traffic Safety Act, so they are required to have a bell or a horn, they are required to be operated on the road, you have to have a helmet when you operate them. Different things like that,” he says.
Because they are considered motorized vehicles, they aren’t allowed to be used on sidewalks or on the trails, either. Users, who must be age 12 or older, are also required to operate them like a vehicle in that they have to obey all of the rules of the road, including signaling and stopping at stop signs.
“It’s not just a free-for-all when it comes to the e-bikes,” says Rossing.
Electric scooters have different rules.
“E-scooters are technically considered to be a prohibited miniature vehicle,” he says. “The only place they are actually permitted, under provincial legislation, is to be operated on private property.”
However, Rossing says the legislation for these vehicles was developed when they first emerged in the early 2000s. As they have only recently begun to get popular, he says the legislation isn’t necessarily where it needs to be for their use.
“What the legislation does allow is for municipalities to apply to the Province to essentially do pilot programs with them,” he says.
In those cases, there have to be changes to bylaws to go along with the pilot program. Rossing says cities like Edmonton and Calgary have gone through the process and that’s why there are residents using e-scooters.
But the Province has been working on updating the legislation after the Alberta Municipalities Association advocated for changes to the legislative framework in 2023.
Rossing says even though the Province is looking into it, they are being careful about how they approach the issue. He says if they start working on something before the Province has finalized everything, then they may have to go back and rework everything to meet with the new requirements.
In the meantime, he says they are working with what they have and are focusing on educating users on safety requirements. Tickets may not be common, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any.
