Utrecht city council backs plan to ban fatbikes in the city
A majority in the Utrecht city council has backed a plan to ban fatbikes in the city as soon as possible. The city council is taking matters into its own hands because the national government hasn’t taken sufficient action against these electric bikes, and incidents are piling up, AD reports.
D66, CDA, Student & Starter, VVD, Horizon, Volt, ChristenUnie, and Stadsbelang Utrecht want fatbikes banned completely from the city. They understand that this will take time to implement, so they want to start by banning fatbikes within the city canals and parks and moving them to the roadway, instead of the bicycle paths, throughout the municipality.
The parties want the municipality to look at Enschede and Amsterdam, which are working on banning fatbikes from parts of the city by amending the General Municipal Bylaw (APV).
Utrecht alderman Senna Maatoug told AD that she is open to that idea. “I’m very interested in Amsterdam, how it works, and we support what they’re doing there,” she said. But there are drawbacks to the capital’s approach. “We see problems all over the city, not just in parks or specific areas.”
The Utrecht city council asked the mayor and aldermen to submit a proposal on banning fatbikes in the city as soon as possible. According to the parties, the national government is taking far too long to regulate this vehicle.
