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Thank you for putting Public Safety First

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This spring, more than 600 Californians signed the Public Safety First petition demanding clarity on e-bikes. Developed by E-Bike Access and launched statewide by CalBike in collaboration with the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, this effort moves the conversation forward in California: legal e-bikes are part of our transportation future, and illegal e-motos being sold as “e-bikes” threaten that future by confusing consumers, overwhelming schools and local law enforcement, and fueling backlash against safe, legal devices. 

Legal e-bikes help parents carry kids, workers reach jobs, students get to class, older adults ride again, and families replace car trips. Protecting that future means drawing a bright line between bicycles and e-motos, and holding companies accountable when they deliberately blur it.

That is the message we are sending to District Attorneys and the California Attorney General: California does not need to restrict legal e-bikes to solve the e-moto problem. It needs to enforce the law against companies misleading consumers and putting communities at risk:

Dear Attorney General Bonta and California District Attorneys:

We are elected officials, school leaders and trustees, teachers, police chiefs and other law enforcement officers, emergency-room doctors and nurses, medical professionals, bicycle shop owners, property managers, bicycle and safety coalitions, e-bike advocates, parents, students, and other concerned residents of California.E-bikes represent a novel opportunity to give people in California a reliable, clean, and independent way to get around. It is our duty to make sure there is abundant access to safe and reasonable e-bikes for them on the market.  

Collectively, we call on our District Attorneys and the California Attorney General to investigate—and when warranted, bring enforcement actions against—the manufacturers and retailers flooding our streets and schools with dangerous high speed electric motorcycles disguised and advertised as “e-bikes.”  Because:

  • Legitimate e-bikes are an integral part of sustainable transportation plans by reducing car trips and pollution.
  • Illegal e-motos (which are more powerful and much faster than class 1, 2, or 3 e-bikes) fuel significant backlash against e-bikes and lead to unnecessary restrictions.
  • Illegal e-motos are particularly dangerous due to their higher-speeds and fast acceleration.
  • The resulting injuries and fatalities resemble those seen in motor-vehicle collisions—such as head trauma, internal bleeding, pelvic fractures, organ damage, broken bones, and traumatic brain injuries.
  • Unlike legitimate e-bikes, electric motorcycles require a driver’s license, DMV registration, and insurance—but the models being sold are unregistrable because they lack required safety equipment and formal classification.
  • These mislabeled vehicles have proliferated faster than law enforcement can keep up. Some are sold on Amazon, Walmart, and other platforms without any state oversight.
  • Local law enforcement and schools are overwhelmed. Middle and high schools report unprecedented supervision and safety challenges.

Our District Attorneys and Attorney General are responsible for protecting consumers from fraud and unfair business practices, especially when public health and safety are at stake.

It is consumer fraud and an unfair business practice for manufacturers and retailers to market electric motorcycles—vehicles requiring licensing, registration, and insurance—as unregulated “e-bikes.”

Accordingly, we call on the District Attorneys and the California Attorney General to exercise their full authority to stop this unlawful conduct and protect our communities.

LA’s Delayed Mobility Projects Show Why California Needs to Fix ATP

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The Active Transportation Program (ATP) is one of California’s most important and effective tools for reducing traffic violence, cutting climate pollution, improving public health, and giving people practical transportation choices. When the program works, it helps build the kinds of connected networks that make everyday trips possible without a car. But those connections only matter if they get built, and winning ATP funding is only the beginning. The real measure of the program is whether those dollars turn into projects people can actually use. This is why CalBike is sponsoring AB 2168: to help deliver ATP funds and projects more efficiently.

A recent LAist article shows how fragile that promise can be. Los Angeles received more than $100 million in state funding in 2022 and 2023 for mobility projects in Boyle Heights, Skid Row, and Wilmington. The projects would deliver bike infrastructure and improve crosswalks, lighting, sidewalks, shade, and access on major corridors in historically underinvested communities. But city officials now say they do not have enough staff to deliver the projects on the required timeline, and L.A. is asking the California Transportation Commission for a six-year extension. If granted, the city won’t begin soliciting construction bids until 2032.

We have communities that need safer streets now. We have a state program, the ATP, designed to fund exactly those kinds of improvements. We have projects that are popular, necessary, and aligned with California’s stated goals on safety, climate, public health, and equity. Yet, the gap between the money awarded and the projects delivered continues to stretch and stall for years.

The Gap AB 2168 Is Designed to Address

AB 2168, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, would strengthen California’s ATP by making it more focused, more coordinated, and more accountable. The bill requires updates to the ATP guidelines to give greater emphasis to safe routes to transit, including projects that improve biking and walking access to transit facilities, school bus stops, transit station areas, planned stops, transit corridors, transit-oriented development areas, and underserved or rural areas.

The most important change in AB 2168 is also one of the most practical: it pushes California to stop treating active transportation as a small, separate category of transportation spending. The bill calls for commitments of State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) funds to ATP-funded projects so California can scale up larger and network-level active transportation improvements. Committing STIP funds, which typically funded larger general roadway projects, to active transportation projects increases available funding for biking and walking infrastructure, increasing the reach far beyond the oversubscribed, underfunded ATP. In plain terms, that means ATP dollars should be used as a corollary, complementary piece for bigger investments, not as the only money available to build safer streets.

At the moment, there are too many projects in California to be solved with one narrow funding stream. A protected bikeway to a train station, a safer corridor through a neighborhood, a shaded walk to a bus stop, and a network of low-stress routes around transit, multiplied statewide, will all require more than ATP can fund. True transformation will require the state’s transportation dollars to work together.

Right now, ATP can help identify the right projects. But without coordination with larger state transportation funds, those projects can end up underfunded, delayed, or broken into fragments. Communities get a promise of safer streets, but not always the full investment needed to deliver a connected network.

Why This Reform Matters

AB 2168 is vital because the delays of this magnitude are unacceptable. Cities and their people should not spend significant portions of their lifespans trapped somewhere between a grant award and a procurement memo. CalBike is pushing this reform because we are looking at the whole interconnected picture of funding to delivery. These pieces are too often treated as separate problems. AB 2168 helps California fund them as the connected network they actually are.

Yes, a single ribbon cutting is easier to understand. But AB 2168 passing would be its own kind of ribbon cutting: not for one trail, in one district, on one sunny morning, but for a system finally made to work more harmoniously.

Amazon Is Pulling High-Speed E-Motos from California E-Bike Marketplace

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Amazon says it will no longer sell e-bikes in California that exceed state speed limits and fall outside the existing three-class system, after KCRA 3 Investigates notified the retailer that products on the company’s marketplace advertised speeds greater than 40 miles per hour, counter to California law. After KCRA contacted Amazon about those listings, the company said it removed the examples provided and is investigating similar products for compliance.

That is the big stride we are seeing: a major marketplace was selling high-speed electric motorbikes as “e-bikes,” and when a newsroom checked the listings against California law, Amazon moved. Kudos to KCRA for following up on something CalBike Executive Director Kendra Ramsey shared with them in a May 3 California Politics 360 interview: that consumers can visit the marketplace, search for what they believe is an electric bicycle for their teenager, and end up with a highway-speed device. This kind of reporting turns a public concern into concrete accountability and better outcomes for e-bike consumers. 

For people who care about e-bikes, this is good news — not because anyone should be celebrating restrictions for their own sake, but because a more honest marketplace is better for everyone: parents, riders, retailers, cities, and the future of bicycling in California. When the products being sold as e-bikes actually match the legal definition of e-bikes, consumers can make clearer choices, communities can set fairer rules, and legal e-bikes are less likely to be blamed for harm caused by vehicles that belong in another category. Amazon is in early stages of voluntarily reviewing listings, and given that Amazon.com currently shows more than 20,000 listings for “e-bikes” and the search term “e-bikes for adults 40 mph” returns more than 1,000 listings — it may take some time before all e-bikes sold through Amazon meet the standard.

The Responsible Middle 

There is a facile critique of the bicycle movement that says advocates want a transportation free-for-all: fewer rules, less accountability, more chaos. This work points in the opposite direction. CalBike is trying to hold the responsible middle, where Californians can access the extraordinary freedom legal e-bikes offer, and our roads, schools, bikeways, and neighborhoods can be safer at the same time. We are uniquely positioned to help build that middle ground with work like the California Independent Electric Mobility Council because we work across the whole ecosystem: with local partners like the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, with legislators shaping statewide rules, with responsible e-bike retailers who need a trustworthy marketplace, and with the advocates and families who know what these bikes make possible. That is part of what a bicycle coalition can do now: draw clearer lines, bring unlikely partners together, protect access to legal e-bikes, and insist that if a vehicle is too fast or too powerful to be an e-bike, it should not be sold as one.

A Coherent Marketplace

KCRA’s reporting showed why this clarity is needed. The issue was not hidden in some obscure corner of the internet. These products were appearing on one of the largest retail platforms in the world, where consumers often assume that basic compliance questions have already been handled. When a shopper types “e-bike” into Amazon, they should not need to cross-check motor wattage, speed claims, vehicle code definitions, age restrictions, and licensing rules to figure out whether the product is actually legal for its advertised use.

That is the standard California should be moving toward: a marketplace where the burden of understanding the law does not fall entirely on parents, teenagers, teachers, police officers, or emergency-room doctors after something has already gone wrong.

New York City has already recognized this problem in another part of the e-mobility market. Local Law 39, first enacted in 2023 and later strengthened, requires powered bicycles, powered mobility devices, and their batteries to meet accredited safety standards before they can be sold, leased, or rented in the city. The law also reaches the online marketplace, and is apparent when you review e-bike listings on Amazon, even in California. All e-bike product listings must display the certification, logo, wordmark, or name of the accredited testing laboratory. That is the right basic principle: a shopper should be able to see, on the listing itself, whether the product meets the rules that apply to it.

The future of e-bikes depends on protecting the thing that made them work in the first place: the public’s understanding that these are bicycles, built for everyday movement, not unregulated motorcycles hiding behind a friendlier name.

California should not have to wait for investigative reporters to catch illegal products one listing at a time. SB 1167 is how California can protect that promise, with clearer labels, stronger accountability, and a marketplace honest enough for the transportation future we need.

CalBike’s 2026 Primary Election Endorsements

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At CalBike, we work not just to improve what policymakers decide about transportation but to improve who those policymakers are. In 2026, California needs leaders who are up to the challenge of the current moment to face the climate crisis and prioritize active transportation.

Because the California Bicycle Coalition is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, we can engage with electoral politics. The critical victories we’ve achieved to make our streets safer for people biking and walking wouldn’t have been possible without strong champions in the California Assembly and Senate. 

This year, and every year, it is vital to elect officials who share our goals of creating equitable, inclusive, and prosperous communities where bicycling helps to enable all Californians to lead healthy and joyful lives.

AD 65 Fatima Iqbal-Zubair

Campaign Website

Iqbal-Zubair supports reshaping our transportation budget so it matches our climate, safety, and mobility goals. “Right now,” she said, “we are spending too much on projects that lock us into more driving, more pollution, and more displacement. I would prioritize faster, more reliable public transit; safer streets for walking and biking; better connections to schools, jobs, and essential services; and infrastructure investments that actually improve daily life for working families.”

We are impressed by Iqbal-Zubair’s track record in South LA and her support for prioritizing low-income communities of color in transportation decisions. We’re excited to see her vision and passion at the state level. 

AD 66 Sara Deen

Campaign Website

Deen advocates for “a significant increase to expand safe and accessible walking and biking options,” while understanding that “expanding highway capacity often leads to more driving, more emissions, and only temporary congestion relief.” A current school board member, Deen supports devoting more of California’s transportation budget to active transportation. Her answers to CalBike’s questionnaire demonstrated her support for prioritizing low-income communities of color for transportation funding.

AD 68 Jessie Lopez

Campaign Website

Jessie Lopez thinks California should look at our transportation budget and how it prioritizes projects that increase vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. Lopez said her priority “would be to rebalance funding toward projects that reduce car dependence and expand real transportation choices.”

Lopez’s answers to CalBike’s candidate questionnaire showed a strong desire to work with active transportation and environmental advocates to shape better state policy. She understands the need to prioritize low-income communities for infrastructure funding.

SD 40 Mara Elliott

Campaign Website

Mara Elliot understands the need to shift from being a car-dependent state. She believes we must prioritize investments in our public transportation system and infrastructure that increase transit ridership, advance our climate goals, and improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists, and those using other modes of transportation.

Elliot would prioritize shifting our state transportation budget to make substantial investments in disadvantaged communities across California. She would work to empower the communities most impacted by pollution to choose their own goals, strategies, and projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution.

CalBike Endorsement Process

CalBike sends questionnaires to candidates for Assembly and Senate and evaluates the responses. The candidates we endorse support safe streets and funding for active transportation infrastructure. They don’t support freeway expansion and projects that will add to vehicle miles traveled, and they favor using money for sustainable transportation instead. 

Lobby Day Put Safe Streets on the Agenda

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Last month, CalBike Lobby Day brought advocates, community leaders, bike coalition staff, riders, parents, and local organizers into meetings with legislators and staff from across the state. Together, participants made the case for CalBike’s 2026 legislative priorities, including stronger protections against illegal e-motos being marketed as e-bikes, reforms to the Active Transportation Program, and increased funding for connected bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

For many participants, the day was a chance to see advocacy up close for the first time. “Lobby Day was an opportunity to learn how to advocate with legislative staff and also to work together with fellow advocates from my community,” said Mick Klasson, a community member who joined meetings with fellow local advocates.

Sophie Nenner of Bicycle Transit Systems said the day helped make the legislative process feel more accessible: “CalBike Lobby Day made me feel prepared and impactful, with valuable prep time to learn directly from experts about bills I don’t always have time to fully dissect.”

Across the Capitol, advocates found legislative offices eager to better understand the difference between legal e-bikes and illegal e-motos. That distinction was central to many conversations as supporters explained that California should enforce the laws already on the books and stop companies from selling high-powered motor vehicles as if they were bicycles, without punishing the families, workers, students, and older adults who rely on legal e-bikes.

In several meetings, advocates also pushed for stronger state investment in the Active Transportation Program. California’s bike and pedestrian projects are routinely oversubscribed, leaving high-quality safety projects unfunded even when local communities are ready to build them. Lobby Day participants made the case that the state should fund complete networks, not disconnected fragments.

Some meetings were encouraging. Some were challenging. That is exactly why showing up matters. Lawmakers and staff heard directly from people who bike in their districts, organize in their communities, run local coalitions, work in bike shops, and understand how state policy shows up on the ground.

One of the most substantive conversations came in a meeting with Assemblymember Patrick Ahrens. Advocates described a fast-moving discussion about e-bike legislation, active transportation funding, and the need to get the details right. It was not an easy meeting, but it was a useful one: the kind of exchange that helps clarify concerns, surface next steps, and keep the door open for better policy.

CalBike Lobby Day was a reminder that advocacy is not abstract. It happens in rooms, in conversations, and in the steady work of our whole coalition, helping decision-makers understand what is at stake. Safer streets are not inevitable, even when the need is clear. They happen because people organize, prepare, show up, and keep showing up.

Thank you to every advocate who joined us in Sacramento, every partner who helped prepare participants, and every legislator and staff member who took the time to listen. 

Don’t Punish E-Bikes for the E-Moto Problem

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California lawmakers are right to be concerned about the spread of high-powered electric devices marketed as e-bikes. There is some truth behind the now-familiar image of 12-year-olds doing wheelies through suburban streets on machines far more powerful than a legal electric bicycle. But too many of this year’s bills respond to that concern by going after the wrong target, and they will not deliver the results anyone actually wants. Instead of drawing a clear line between legal e-bikes and illegal e-motos, these proposals blur it further. They add burdens to the bikes people actually rely on, while failing to directly address the devices creating the confusion in the first place.

California needs to protect the promise of e-bikes, not let the e-moto backlash distort the law. In this century, e-bikes have been one of the most important transportation success stories in the state. They help people replace car trips. They expand access to biking for older adults, working families, and people who might not otherwise ride in hilly terrain. They make biking more practical for longer distances, hills, errands, school dropoff, and everyday life. In a state that talks constantly about climate, congestion, affordability, and mobility, e-bikes should be an obvious part of the solution, and under settled California law, they already are.

A legal e-bike is clearly defined. It has a motor of no more than 750 watts and falls into one of three classes with established speed limits. That framework was not accidental. It was designed to allow electric bicycles to expand mobility without collapsing the distinction between a bicycle and a motorcycle.

Increasingly, higher-powered electric devices, often called e-motos, are being advertised and sold as if they are ordinary e-bikes, or at least in ways that do not make the distinction clear to consumers. Many exceed the 750-watt cap. Some are capable of motorcycle-level speeds and acceleration. Yet they are marketed to families and young riders using the same language and labels that apply to Class 1, 2, and 3 electric bicycles.

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The Bills Moving in the Wrong Direction

Some lawmakers are responding to real public concern in exactly the wrong way. Instead of cracking down on illegal high-powered devices being sold as e-bikes, these bills would burden the legal e-bikes people actually use for transportation.

CalBike is opposing AB 1557 and AB 1942, take action with us.

AB 1557 would rewrite the rules for legal e-bikes in ways that create confusion, make many bikes less practical, and impose new burdens on riders, retailers, and manufacturers without squarely addressing the illegal devices driving concern in the first place.

AB 1942 would require registration and license plates for certain classes of e-bikes, pulling bicycles into a motor vehicle framework that does not fit and will do little to solve the actual problem.

California should be drawing a clearer line, not a blurrier one. That is why CalBike is co-sponsoring approaches like SB 1167, which focus on truthful labeling, clear definitions, and stopping illegal e-motos from being marketed as e-bikes. And worse, these bills risk reinforcing a false story: that e-bikes themselves are the problem.

E-bikes are not the source of California’s traffic violence crisis. They are one of the exits from it. They give people a way to make short trips without climbing into a two-ton vehicle. They offer a cleaner, cheaper, more humane form of transportation. They are not a fringe gadget. They are one of the most practical tools we have to reduce car dependence. Once lawmakers start treating e-bikes as a nuisance to be contained rather than a public good to be protected, the whole conversation shifts in the wrong direction. 

A welcome step; now let’s see enforcement

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We are thrilled to see California Attorney General Rob Bonta alert consumers to the difference between legal e-bikes and faster e-motos. Joined in the alert by the district attorneys of Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo Counties, the consumer notice helps draw a clearer line between legal e-bikes and the illegal high-speed electric motorcycles that are too often marketed and sold as if they are the same thing.

That is exactly why CalBike launched our Public Safety First petition in conjunction with the Marin County Bicycle Coalition.

We are calling on district attorneys and Attorney General Bonta to not just talk about but to enforce consumer protection laws against companies selling illegal e-motos as legal e-bikes. 

The attorney general’s recent alert matters because it shows that state and local law enforcement leaders are paying attention to the real problem. A warning alone will not be enough. If California is serious about public safety and protecting access to safe, legal e-bikes, this needs to lead to more action.

Now, California officials should go further by investigating and taking action against the manufacturers and retailers flooding the market with illegal vehicles that create real danger and, in the process, fuel a broader backlash against e-bikes. If you have not already, sign the petition and urge district attorneys and the attorney general to act.

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California should protect real e-bikes and crack down on illegal high-powered vehicles being marketed as if they are the same thing. Use the form below to speak up.

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