Emergency measures approved to manage e-bike use in Queen Creek

Effective immediately, the town of Queen Creek has implemented an emergency ordinance setting limits on speeds for e-bikes and other motorized devices.

During its May 20 meeting, the Queen Creek Town Council unanimously voted to prohibit the use of e-bicycles and other motorized devices in town parks, establish a specific process for impoundments, set a 15-mph speed limit on sidewalks, multiuse pathways/trails and parking lots, and require hands-free operation of phones and other cellular devices by riders.

The action is aimed to head off an expected increase in e-bike use by teens during the summer break and creating a safer environment for riders and residents.

“Our parks, our sidewalks, our trails and our parking lots are becoming places of high conflict between kids that are operating e-bikes — sometimes adults — and with the motoring public,” Assistant Chief of Police Noah Johnson told the council.

Particularly disruptive are so-called “ride outs” organized through social media.

“That has created incidents where there’s 30 to 50 kids on these e-bikes and they start to take over the roadway and parking lots and things of that nature,” Johnson said. “This issue is rapidly growing beyond the tools that we have now for normal traffic enforcement, and it requires us to kind of move to the next level.”

While other Valley towns are just starting to grapple with e-bike use, Queen Creek expanded their permitted use as part of an ordinance adopted into the town code in 2023.

But in the last six months, Johnson said there has been a sharp uptick in incidents involving e-bikes that at times can require up to 20 responding police officers to control during peak evening hours.

From the first quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of this year, the Queen Creek Police Department reported a 94% increase in juvenile disturbances and e-bike-related calls for service.

From January 2025 to April 2026, QCPD reported there were 1,834 calls for service regarding juvenile disturbances, including those involving e-bikes. From Jan. 1 through April, an estimated 20 e-bikes were impounded.

The new update prohibits the use of e-bikes and motorized devices in town parks with the exception of designated roadways and parking lots for entrance and exit only. If an operator wants to take their e-bike to another area of a park the bike must be walked or carried to the location.

“Families starting to leave those public spaces. They’re not coming to the parks. They’re avoiding some other areas because what we’re seeing is high-speed riding, lifting the wheel, zinging through the parks,” Johnson said. “There’re parents there with young children. It starts to cause a lot of anxiety. You can’t even use the basketball court anymore because they’ve kind of overtaken it.”

Use of e-bikes and other motorized vehicles in parks is not only endangering resident safety, but it is also causing wear and tear on the facilities, officials said.

“The infrastructure just isn’t built to handle e-bikes, and … it stretches further to e-motorcycles — the weights and the speeds and the torque and the power is just significantly different than any kid on a BMX,” said Adam Robinson, director of parks and recreation. “They’re getting quite a bit of wear and tear that normally just wouldn’t happen.”

The update also imposes a 15-mph speed limit for devices that are authorized to operate on sidewalks, multiuse paths, trails and parking lots.

This takes away the guesswork police must put in to determine whether an e-bike is a class 1, 2 or 3, especially when people are modifying less powerful bikes to make them faster.

“Even the class 1 bikes, you swap out your motor, or what’s called jailbreak it, mess with the computer — now, there’s no limit on the speed until you just run out of battery power,” Johnson said.

The third sets up a specific process for impounding and releasing e-bikes and other motorized devices by police. Impoundments would focus on incidents of reckless operation, disregarding traffic controls and riding in prohibited areas.

Seizure would not be authorized for minor technical equipment violations or in a group context if there is no unsafe conduct.

For underage kids riding recklessly, police will call the parents to the scene, issue a seizure form and place a mandatory 72-hour hold on the device. To get the device back, an impoundment fee will apply, as well as completion of a two-hour safety course.

The final update requires hands-free operation of a phone or cellular device while operating an e-bike or other motorized devices on town property.

Council Member Travis Padilla said he and his 8-year-old son have seen first-hand the disruptions the motorized devices are causing in parks.

“I did not want to see any regulation, but I’m prefacing this with the fact that I’ve seen this with my own eyes, the need for this,” he said. “If we don’t take some sort of minimal regulatory action, then we’ll have youth at risk, adults at risk, small kids at risk, and I think it’s time to see this emergency measure put into place.”

Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org. Please send your comments about this article to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.