DCC Comments on E-Bike EA

E-Bike Photo from the Bike Denali website

The National Park Service recently put out a Programmatic Environmental Assessment on Use of Electric Bicycles in the National Park System, responding to a lawsuit won by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The lawsuit challenged a Trump-era rule that authorized individual parks to open trails to e-bikes where conventional bikes are allowed. DCC’s comments on the EA are attached. The comments focused on issues of particular attention at Denali, with the biggest question related to whether the EA (and the rule it supports) could inadvertently open Alaskan wilderness to electric bicycle use. Presently at Denali, e-bikes are only allowed on the park road, the Parks Highway, the multi-use trail between the Nenana River pedestrian bridge and the Denali Visitor Center, and the Roadside Bike Trail spur to the Riley Creek Day Use Area.

PEER is more broadly critical of the EA. You can read that organization’s press release on the EA here.

DCC Comments on Electric Bikes Programmatic EA