Passaic County, in New Jersey, is banning electric bikes, electric scooters, and motorized bikes from all county park property, News 12 reported. Officials said the goal of the new restriction is safety, as the use of the devices has grown rapidly across the region in recent years.
The ban applies across all park land owned by the county, meaning riders will no longer be permitted to use e-bikes, electric scooters, or other motorized bikes on those grounds. The county presented the measure as a step intended to protect the people who visit its parks.
The decision is rooted in safety concerns tied to the rapid spread of the devices. Officials pointed to figures on injuries linked to electric and motorized bikes and scooters as part of the reasoning behind keeping them off county park property going forward.
Figures from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission show that more than 360,000 emergency room visits were related to these transportation devices between 2017 and 2022, underscoring the scale of injuries associated with their use across the United States during that period.
The same data indicate that injuries are rising sharply, climbing by about 23 percent each year. That steady upward trend has added urgency to efforts by local authorities to manage where and how the increasingly common devices can be ridden in public spaces.
The Passaic County ban comes just weeks before new statewide e-bike regulations are due to take effect in New Jersey, placing the county's parks among the first areas to impose tighter limits on the devices ahead of the broader rules taking hold across the state.