Speed Limits and E-Transport

There is a Practical Solution

The big transportation story of 2025 continues to be the rise of e-transport.

Every week I see more cargo e-bikes, and more fat tire bikes, on the streets of Atlanta. I know similar things are happening everywhere, because public officials are panicking about it.

Cities and states are “cracking down” with laws that set age limits, speed limits, even try to create e-bike licenses.

All these laws have one thing in common. They’re meant to adapt e-bikes to the world of cars. I have no problem with licensing delivery companies, but sending the cops after kids on bikes is not going to work.

There’s another way.

Three Routes, Three Limits

Cities must accept that there are now three transit modes on our streets and build infrastructure (including legal infrastructure) around that.

Cars have one set of rules, and their own dedicated infrastructure. There should be routes that are only for cars, with speed limits of 35 mph and up, defined by safety.

E-transport needs narrow, dedicated paths, and shared streets, where both cars and e-bikes face the same speed limit of 20 mph. The reason for cars to adapt is that they’re homicide machines, and in places like Manhattan they’re not going faster than that anyway.

It may surprise you to learn that the Dutch aren’t fully onboard with the changes I recommend. Motorcycles are common on the Netherlands fietspads, often coming up behind cyclists at 40 mph (60 kph). The drivers have helmets but that doesn’t help the cyclist they run up on. A motorized speed limit of 20 mph (30 kph) would push the motorcycles to the roadway.

Car drivers think they should be allowed to go as fast as they can, anywhere there’s a road surface. Cities have done little to challenge that myth. Efforts to enforce car speed limits, using technology, are fiercely opposed and often overturned. As a result, the death toll among cyclists is rising, even while that among car drivers is falling.

Separate bikes from cars where possible and, where it’s not, adapt to the limits of the bike. That’s where we’re heading. The only question is whether it will happen with e-transport representing 1%, 10%, or 30% of the traffic, and how many people on e-bikes will die in the meantime.