September 21st meeting of the Housing Planning and Development Committee to order.

First order of business, I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the September 8th, 2026 meeting.

Second.

Motion and a second.

All in favor.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Second um item on the agenda, ordinance 40-2025.

This is dealing with upgrade up making some improvements to our bicycle infrastructure ordinances here within the city.

Assistant Director Boss is here, will walk us through.

I think we've we've had a session like this before where we've gone through cases, um, the case boards um updates and input for what those should look like.

So this will be, I believe, the last round of those, those inputs that we'll see.

Um, and it will give us a chance to uh discuss those um edits this evening.

So um with that I'll turn it over to Assistant Director Boss.

Thanks, Mr.

Chair.

So uh yes, as you said, so we're um what I've got here is basically a summary that kind of builds on uh I believe that last time I was here was in July.

We reviewed kind of the the in-progress kind of deliberations post June case meeting.

Um so this is now a post-September case meeting where we finalized the recommendations.

Um just have a handful of slides.

It's uh four slides that kind of summarizes the main changes to chapter 301, which is the definitions under the traffic code, and then chapter 373, which is kind of the it's the chapter on the operation of bicycles on motorcycles.

And then the last one is the section uh from 903.10 uh which is uh streets, that's talking about the duty to repair sidewalks, which we didn't didn't really change anything in that one.

Our focus was in 301 and 373 was where all the main recommendations were.

So um some of these the some of these things were kind of I would I I don't call them minor to like play them down, but like some of them were were kind of almost administrative changes or updates.

Um as you're all aware, uh I think the last time that we really looked in detail at the but this these same chapters was in 2019.

Um and and it was you know, every time you look at the code and you make changes to code, it's always got some bend or focus on it.

And the focus at that point in time was the shared shared mobility devices and the proliferation of scooter rentals and and all of those that at that time and they were coming into Cleveland.

They were and we were working on a pilot program here in Lakewood.

And so um and so a lot of the the updates at that time were pretty limited to just bringing that shared use uh or that shared mobility program into the community and making sure that we had the regulations and the definitions to support those specific devices.

So I think as we all have learned over the last uh like seven years, uh the proliferation of these devices is is really uh increased over time.

And so I've tried to bold some of the the new things that are in there, but I'll I'll just go bullet by bullet here.

So we did update the definition for motorized bicycle, um, and that was uh any of these updates and a lot of these things I pull forward, it's it's because the state updated their definitions.

And so I we try to pull those in any time the state updates theirs and they apply.

So the motorized bicycle, um that is uh we you know traditionally known as a moped uh and the state definition still talks about the cubic centimeter or cubic centimeter displacement of the engine, gas-powered engines.

Um we updated that so that the the uh definition matched the state definition.

And the the clarification from the case board was to make sure that that definition also says does not include an electronic bicycle and a low speed micromobility device just to make sure that we had I think we had a mobility device earlier um in there and an e-bike just to make sure that people don't get those things confused.

Um we added a new definition for uh I'm calling it the e-moto.

That was the term that I settled on.

We discussed it in case.

Um there is no state definition for that.

And so that is a uh homegrown uh local definition to describe um those devices that basically exceed the capabilities and limitations of uh an e-bike under the state uh code, the state definition for an e-bike.

We added the full definition from the state for an e-bike.

Previous to that, we had a much more simple definition of e-bike that and a lot of that code work that we did in 2019 I did in partnership with the City of Cleveland so that we would match as those shared mobility programs were kind of going over our boundaries going back and forth.

We wanted our code to match.

Cleveland has updated theirs, we updated it and case recommended to update that to the full state definition that includes all three classes of e-bikes.

So it has sub-definitions for class one, two, and three.

So the new state term is they have a new term called low speed micromobility device that kind of it defines all those things that are not e-bikes, um, not e-motos as we're defining them.

Um so we brought that state definition in uh but also added kind of uh an addition some additional language that include but are not limited to e-scooters, electric one-wheeled unicycles, electric skateboards.

You could probably make that list like 20 lines long, but uh that was a recommendation from the case that just includes some of those examples so that people would have an understanding of what those low-speed micromobility devices are.

I retained the statement in there that it does not include devices solely used for the use of children or assisted mobility devices used by persons with disabilities.

That was something that we had in 2019, we kept that in there.

Um try to avoid confusion, and that's another reason for getting away from the mobility device generic term and any potential commun uh confusion over what you're talking about.

Are you talking about a you know a motorized wheelchair or are you talking about an e-scooter?

Um, we added uh and there were did no record no changes or anything, but we did add the ORC definitions for a bikeway and a shared use path.

Um so the bikeway talks about infrastructure that's basically curb to curb, it's within the roadway.

Shared use path is obviously infrastructure that is separated from the roadway.

So then going into so once we finished kind of the work on what the the terms that we needed to add or refine or or change, uh now we got into the the operation chapter.

Um each of these sections as you kind of work your way down here.

So that we do have a section on reckless operation.