Virginia Beach council weighs e‑bike restrictions, education and a task force amid safety concerns

City staff told the Virginia Beach City Council the Commonwealth’s e‑bike law limits local authority and treats most e‑bikes as bicycles while allowing limited exceptions for localities to restrict certain classes on trails and paths. The presentation described enforcement hurdles and asked council how it wanted staff to proceed with local code changes and whether to seek additional authority from the General Assembly.

The council heard from Greg McKenzie, identified in the meeting materials as the benefit of affairs director, who summarized state law, labeling requirements and the three class definitions: “Class 1…motor only works while pedaling…top assisted speed of 20 miles an hour,” “Class 2…contains a throttle,” and “Class 3…the motor only works while pedaling and has a top assisted speed of 28 miles per hour.” He told council the Commonwealth’s code “does provide some, some limited authority to restrict where e‑bikes can operate, but they do not provide authority to ban them or to keep them off local roads or out of local parks.”

Why this matters: staff said constituent complaints about e‑bike safety—speed, interactions with pedestrians on boardwalks and shared use paths, and perceived increases in severity of accidents—are rising, but the city does not have an established local dataset separating e‑bike crashes from conventional bicycle crashes. Captain Brad Wessler of the Virginia Beach Police Department described enforcement limits: officers have difficulty distinguishing classes in motion, need to witness infractions to cite them, and generally take an educational approach with young riders.

Staff options presented to council included: cleaning up local code language to harmonize with state law (for example, revising Atlantic Avenue provisions that staff said are preempted by state code), amending local code to explicitly reference the three e‑bike classes and state age/helmet rules, creating a local registration program (staff warned this would require staff time and budget), and requesting expanded authority from the General Assembly (for example, to prohibit e‑bikes in parks or to change helmet‑age requirements).

Council reaction and next steps: multiple council members urged a cautious, data‑driven approach. Several members suggested a narrow, near‑term restriction (for example, restricting class 3 e‑bikes on shared‑use paths) could be “low‑hanging fruit” while staff and a council‑appointed group study broader regulation. Vice Mayor Rosemary Wilson and others asked staff to collect EMS/ER and police data and to survey peer localities for best practices. Council discussed a task force made up of stakeholders (public safety, resort area advisory committees, civic leagues, business/rental operators) to return recommended, enforceable language and signage plans.

Quotations in context: “The Commonwealth does provide some, some limited authority to restrict where e‑bikes can operate, but they do not provide authority to ban them,” Greg McKenzie said. Captain Brad Wessler noted the ADA exception that allows mobility‑device e‑bikes to use sidewalks where a pedestrian may go and said, “Under the ADA, we do allow them to travel as anywhere a person on foot could travel,” adding officers cannot ask riders to prove an ADA exemption.

What’s next: staff agreed to gather local injury and enforcement data, pull comparable local ordinances and state legislative language used elsewhere, and brief council members individually. Council members signaled support for forming a focused stakeholder task force and directed staff to return with options and cost estimates for signage, registration, education campaigns, and possible code amendments.