By admin After hundreds of complaints about reckless riding, Folsom officials are considering tougher rules for e-bikes, electric motorcycles and other motorized devices — but City Council members stopped short Tuesday of backing the proposed restrictions as written.
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Instead, council members directed city staff to combine two proposed ordinances and return with revised rules that would allow slower-speed riding on paved paths in city parks while increasing penalties for violations.
The proposals went well beyond e-bikes. They targeted what the city called “e-conveyances,” a broad category that included e-bikes, e-scooters, motorized bicycles, electric motorcycles — sometimes called e-motos — and other electrically powered devices.
Folsom police said complaints involving the devices have risen sharply, particularly those involving juveniles on roads, in parks and on bike paths.
The Police Department has received more than 580 calls for service related to e-conveyance incidents since January, already surpassing the more than 540 calls received during all of 2025, Police Chief Adam Green told the council Tuesday. The most common complaint, he said, was reckless driving.
“Folsom Police Department has worked closely with the school district to educate children and parents about e-conveyance laws, and we’ve utilized social media and traditional media outreach. Additionally, our officers have issued warnings, tickets and traffic citations for violations,” Green said. “Despite these efforts, complaints and reports of unsafe riding and damage to city parks continue.”
City staff said police have also conducted proactive enforcement this year, including issuing citations, towing e-motorcycles and making arrests for crimes committed by people riding the devices.
What Folsom proposed
The City Council was considering two ordinances Tuesday that approached the issue differently.
The first, proposed by the Police Department, would have established citywide rules for e-bikes and other e-conveyances on sidewalks, streets, bike lanes, public property and other public rights-of-way.
It would have prohibited riders from performing wheelies or stunts, intentionally swerving around traffic, carrying passengers on devices not designed for them and riding against traffic except when passing safely.
Riders also would have been required to yield to pedestrians and obey signs and traffic signals. Using a handheld cellphone while riding would have been prohibited.
The proposal would have generally banned e-bikes and other e-conveyances from playgrounds, parks and school grounds unless signs specifically allowed them.
It also would have imposed a 15 mph speed limit on public rights-of-way where state law did not already establish a speed limit.
Violations would have carried fines of $50 for a first offense, $100 for a second violation within a year and $500 for additional violations during the same period. Parents or guardians of minors could have been held responsible for administrative penalties.
A separate Parks and Recreation Department proposal focused specifically on Folsom’s Class I bike paths, which are paved trails separated from vehicle traffic and shared by bicyclists and pedestrians.
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Contrary to a broader ban, that proposal would have allowed bicycles, e-bikes, electric scooters and certain electric-assist mobility devices on the paved paths while establishing a 15 mph speed limit.
Motorized bicycles and golf carts would have been prohibited from the paths.
The proposal also would have barred stunts, riding on adjacent open space or landscaping, failing to yield to pedestrians and using unpaved hiking, walking or equestrian trails unless otherwise allowed.
During public comment, one resident described feeling victimized by riders while using city parks with his 2-year-old daughter.
“These e-bike riders abuse us verbally, call us names, racial slurs, and they take off,” he said. “I don’t know, as a dad, how much I can take.”
He urged the city to impound devices used in serious or reckless violations. Several other residents made the same request.
Folsom staff said the city could not legally adopt the type of impoundment residents requested, citing Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable seizures.
The issue has surfaced elsewhere in the Sacramento region.
Winters recently adopted rules allowing police under limited circumstances to impound electric devices operated unsafely by minors. The western Yolo County city also imposed a 20 mph limit where another speed limit is not established and restricted where e-bikes, scooters and off-highway electric motorcycles can be ridden.
Elk Grove and Galt also have recently tightened rules governing e-bikes and other electric devices amid complaints about speeding and reckless riding.
Council sends proposals back
Folsom council members did not formally introduce either ordinance Tuesday after the meeting stretched late into the evening.
Instead, they told city staff to combine the proposals and return with revisions.
Some requested changes were substantial. Rather than banning e-bikes and other covered devices from parks outright, council members wanted them allowed on paved paths at lower speeds. They also asked staff to increase the proposed penalties for violations.
“We don’t have to get it right the first time,” said Mayor Justin Raithel. “If we put this in and we have all these other restrictions around the dangerous riding, and we still see a problem on the paved trails and parks, then in six months, we say, ‘the lower speed limit didn’t work. We just need to outright ban them from the parks.’”
The council directed City Manager Brian Whitemeyer to incorporate its feedback and return with a revised ordinance.
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Councilmember Anna Rohrbough asked to see the changes “as soon as possible.”