On August 4, 2026 the Alliance City Council and citizens discussed various concerns, issues and possible solutions with the local e-bike and e-scooter community.
John McGhehey, City of Alliance Mayor, states that nobody is suggesting that the city ban e-bikes.
“I want to make something very plain before we start anything. There is nobody on the council that I’m aware of that is suggesting that we ban e-bikes. I’ve seen some comments on social media about that, and that is not the purpose of this. The purpose of this is safety for the people that are riding e-bikes, the safety of pedestrians that are in the area, for people who are driving in the area,” said McGhehey.
Julie Harris, Executive Director of Bike Walk Nebraska, states that the market for e-bikes and e-scooters has outpaced policy and that parents may not know if what they are buying is street legal.
“We recognize that the issue of e-motos and e-scooters and e-bikes is a very urgent situation in our communities. Everybody who has my kind of job across the country, we’re all scrambling to figure out how to deal with this because the market has outpaced the policy so quickly. Kids have the availability to so many new devices that may or may not be street legal. Parents may not even know if they’re street legal. It’s just a big gray area right now,” said Harris.
Harris stated that they have received funding for studies that help decide statutory definitions, state recommendations and policies.
“We received some funding very recently to do a study on the issue and make policy recommendations, both for the state and local level, not one blanket policy by any stretch, but rather sort of a menu of policy recommendations that cities can consider when looking at the issue that you’re dealing with specifically, our state recommendations will likely, if I had to guess, revolve around statutory definitions of devices, so that when you all go to make the policy in your local jurisdiction, you have a little bit more statutory language to fall back on already,” said Harris.
Opening the floor to public comment, residents in person and via email, discussed their concerns with what they have witnessed and how they may be impacted by rules and regulations.
“On Emerson and Eighth, I watch numerous electric bikes buzz right though that stop sign, and as let’s see, about two months ago, a block over and a block down, a young lady buzzed right through a street intersection without slowing down, and got hit by a car and sustained injury. I don’t want to ban them because a lot of people use them, but we should have more training on use of them and have it where individuals under a certain age, like 18 or so, be required to wear some kind of protective element, and also you know training courses. We need to develop guidelines and promote safety on both sides,” said Tom Broeder.
“I kind of understand where both people are coming from, both sides of the situation. Yeah, some of those kids do need some training. I, as someone who rides an e-bike, but I don’t ride it all the time, I definitely see how careless some of these kids can be. But as some of the policies, well, sorry, not policies. Some of the things that people make comments about, and some of the things that are being discussed, are going to affect adults like me. I ride my bike to my job, and all the errands I have around town. I don’t mean to contribute to any problems if I have, but when it comes down to it, I’ve also noticed that when I’m running around, like a lot of people are complaining, but cars are just as much of a problem on this road than it is just the bikes. People complain about me driving on the sidewalk, but going out into the road is pretty dangerous, considering the fact of how many people have already treated the rest walk as a finish line and a stop sign is a stop suggestion, and it’s pretty dangerous because there’s times where I need to slow down, but there’s times where I’m going a decent speed and someone flight right in and I almost get hit or something. Granted, some of us riders do probably need to improve, but at the same time, they’re taking everything the kids do and throwing it on us. And some of the things the kids do, kids are kids. Kids are going to be dumb, and we got to do our best at it,” said Boone Johnson.
“I don’t want to take anything away from the kids, but I think you need to have a safety class, like the police roundup that you have, their bike roundup. You need to have some kind of class with that, and you wear helmets. I wear a helmet. You see me. I have all my lights and all the safety things I can,” said Chuck Frise.
“I’m super sympathetic to obviously kids getting hurt. Don’t want any of that. Super sympathetic to the Chief having to enforce keeping these kids safe. I guess above all, I just don’t want to see for adults like me any additional permitting. I don’t really want to have to pay a registration fee. I don’t think there should be a ban on bikes being downtown or on any of the trails. My favorite thing to do is ride through all the parks and everything. I guess just above all, I don’t want any additional hoops to jump through. I just don’t want to be penalized for other people acting the fool,” said Kevin Shrader.
“I am the physical therapist at the hospital, and over the last three years, we have promoted a free program for the community for bike safety. We call it the annual bike rally, and the age of kids that we get are about 10 and under, and we sponsor with about 18 different organizations within the community. One big partner is the 4-H Extension Office here in town. They have provided different bike safety courses that young children have taken that promote direction and hand signals and stopping and looking for objects. One thing that we’re very fortunate is this hospital in the past has sponsored helmets as well that we give away free for these children. I think probably one of the most impactful things that we can do is to host some type of training, and one thing that we have discussed is: is it a possibility of how do you get the biggest access, and if it was possible, possibly going into the schools? You know, once we create ordinances and some rules, really teaching those kiddos firsthand, these are rules that we need to follow, but these are also some safety things that you can do just to create that awareness. One thing that I really like is promoting safety. So one suggestion was handing out certificates, but I think you would have a little bit more of an impact if you were to provide safe equipment and gear for children,” said Abby Grosse-Rhode.
“I come at things from a little bit different perspective because I have a daughter who has been riding an e-scooter for the last five years, but we have done our best to educate her on what the rukes are and all of that kind of stuff, partially because we knew eventually she would be driving, and the same rules would apply when she drives this year. One thing that I do know is that our police officers have a lot to patrol, and we are asking more of our police officers every day. There are lots of people who drive illegally cars, bikes, motorcycles, everything, and so we’re asking them to help us more and more. There’s a lot of kids and a lot of adults who ride e-bikes and e-scooters perfectly safe and legal every day in this town, but we also know that there are some who are taking advantage of their freedoms and not riding safely and riding carelessly. So what’s the answer? Honestly, I don’t know the full answer, but I think it starts with us as parents and neighbors talking to those kids, having a conversation, educating them, helping them to see if you’re driving, if you’re going through a stop sign and that other people don’t stop, you could be injured. Having a conversation with kids who are still learning and don’t understand the rules and helping and advocating for safety. I also think that as they are able, law enforcement should be able to have the ability to stop and have conversations with kids. If they see kids being reckless, and I think they are a great resource, but I also know they’re very busy. But I hope that they would be able to have a conversation with kids, and they would respect our law enforcement enough to listen to them. I also think that as a parent, if my child was being careless, and a police officer stopped and talked to them, and then stopped and talked to them again, I would be 100% okay if that police officer said, ‘You know what? I’m going to take your scooter to the police department, and I’m going to call your parents’ because I would rather have the police have me come pick up a scooter or pay a fine than for a child who is not listening to the education and the safety to dying on a city street. Finally, I know you are not talking about banning e-bikes or e-scooters, but I just ask that you consider those that are riding them safely and carefully to allow them to continue to do so,” said Lisa Splattstoesser.
“I don’t have any problem with e-bikes at all. But one thing that I do struggle with, though, is a lot of the young kids that need education apparently, and they do. I live beside Ninth Street, which is a one-way street, and daily, almost hourly, there’s people that go down Ninth Street the wrong way on e-bikes, usually looking at a cell phone. I’m talking adults, and I don’t want to be picking on the kids, but I am afraid that somebody’s going to get hurt one of these days by not obeying the traffic signals. They’re double on some of these e-bikes sometimes, and they’re constantly not paying attention to traffic signals. So I don’t know what the solution is, but I do agree with Lisa, you know. Educate our kids, our neighbors, things like that,” said Dave Lawrence.
Alliance Chief of Police, David Leavitt, stated that while the vast majority of the issues are related to kids, the police are limited in what they can do and ultimately it comes down to the parents’ responsibility to educate their children.
“The vast majority of issues we have with e-bikes and e-scooters are small children. I would say in the 10 to 13 year old range, and we get a lot of flack. You know, why don’t you write them a ticket? Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that? I cannot write a traffic citation to an underage, unlicensed juvenile. Can’t do it. And if you’ve ever read any of my news releases about juveniles, you know that there’s very little we can do to a juvenile unless they’ve committed some heinous crime. The other thing I’ll mention is we participate in the bike rally, of course, every year, and I’m all for more educational programs, anything we can come up with, but at the end of the day, we cannot parent the children of the City of Alliance. No ordinance that the city passes will fix this problem. It’s not up to the schools. It’s not up to the city. It’s not up to the police department. It’s up to the parent to teach and educate their children. I know there’s at least one parent who’s doing that because she spoke up here earlier, and that alone is what will correct the issue that we’re seeing. I do not have enough police officers to deal with all the things that are happening on e-bikes and e-scooters and things right now. We’ve already had one, at least one child that I know of, seriously injured to the point that they had be flown to a regional hospital because we couldn’t address their issue. And I don’t want to have an even sadder story to tell, so I really encourage the parents to be responsible,” said Leavitt.
Leavitt went on to address the differences in e-bikes and e-motorcycles or e-dirt bikes.
“There are three classes of e-bikes. They all have pedals. If they don’t have pedals, they are not an e-bike. They are basically an e-motorcycle or e-dirt bike. And this is a good time to remind everyone that all dirt bikes, e-bike, gasoline, mini bikes are illegal, except on private property,” said Leavitt.
This meeting was an important stepping stone to get the public’s input and to begin discussing how best to create ordinances that support safety around the city and the challenges in doing so.
“This is an important topic. Several people have brought up they don’t want to see someone seriously injured, particularly a child, and so that is the impetus for this is trying to develop ordinances that will promote safety. Julie, you’ve heard the public comments. Maybe you can help us as we try to develop cautiously any new ordinances or changes in ordinances that we think will help,” said McGhehey.
“Whatever you pass, it ultimately has to be realistically enforceable, and that’s kind of what we’re seeing happen across the state. Things getting put on the books that are just really not enforceable and haven’t been really thought through,” said Harris.