Mount Desert Island residents have grown weary of the staggering rise of e-bikes on Acadia National Park’s sprawling carriage road system.
It’s been roughly seven years since the National Park Service announced a blanket policy allowing Class 1 e-bikes — which cannot travel faster than 20 mph— in parks across the country.
Since then, many MDI residents have grown tired of the persistent congestion, speed and generally disruptive impact that some say has accompanied the electric bicycles’ introduction to park life. But while e-bikes have annoyed many longtime park visitors, they’ve also provided others, some of whom have various physical limitations, with a new way to enjoy Acadia’s beauty.
The rise of e-bikes comes at a turbulent time for Acadia and the entire park service, which has seen significant funding cuts and staff layoffs under the Trump administration. Staffing cuts have resulted in fewer rangers to enforce the speed limit or verify that Class 2 and 3 e-bikes — which have a throttle, can travel up to 28 mph and are only allowed on paved roads — stay off the gravel carriage roads.
It is also another example of how some local residents have begun to bristle at the ever-increasing growth of tourism on MDI, where Acadia had an all-time record high in annual visits last year. Twice in recent years, voters in Bar Harbor have cast ballots in support of enacting strict limits on cruise ship visits, and the town currently has an ongoing temporary ban on hotel development.
On Acadia’s carriage roads, some residents who have walked them for decades — on their own or with their dogs, or horseback riding along the 45-mile network of paths — have stopped using them altogether, particularly in the park’s busy summer season, as e-bikes overtake the once-peaceful trail system.
“A lot of people on foot that used to be harmonious with the cycling crew have pretty much abandoned being out there because we don’t stand a chance,” local resident Meredith Gabbard said. “[The park] has chosen the rights of e-bike people over the rest of the park users.”
E-bikes, which are estimated to make up roughly half of all bicycle traffic on the gravel paths, are different from traditional bikes, Gabbard said, adding that she and her husband Michael Woodworth, a lifelong island resident, have been visiting the carriage roads for decades.
Many e-bikers travel in large groups, often with tour guides who offer lessons on how to ride the machines on the carriage road system. But that guidance seems insufficient for locals who say the large groups — some of which exceed a dozen riders — take over the trail network, flying by walkers and traditional bikers alike, according to the couple and others interviewed for this article.
Residents have complained about e-bikes swerving dangerously close to other cyclists, walkers and horseriders, exceeding the 20-miles per hour speed limit and riding on the wrong side of the road.
“I hike and I take my dog, and [e-bikers] don’t announce if they’re coming up on your left,” Gabbard said. “We’ve been driven off of the road. My dog won’t even go on the carriage roads anymore — the bikes terrify him.”
The problem has grown so severe that a number of Bar Harbor residents have formed an “underground task force” to discuss the rise of e-bike related safety concerns, Gabbard said.
“Everybody just feels like we can’t use the park anymore,” she said. “The park can’t police it. The rental places should take some ownership on what they’re renting and where the bikes are going.”
A recent Faceboost post with a photo of a local company unloading e-bikes at Eagle Lake boat landing drew 145 comments, many from locals complaining of the surge in e-bikes and congestion they cause.
The park service has listened to these concerns. Yet after a study with the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the park found that e-bikers were riding on average 12 mph, while traditional cyclists were averaging 11 mph, Acadia Superintendent Kevin Schneider told the Acadia Advisory Commission in mid-September.
In other words, the findings didn’t indicate that e-bikers are speeding.
The park service did not respond to an inquiry from the Bangor Daily News about e-bike related accidents in Acadia.
Stephanie Clement, vice president of conservation for the nonprofit group Friends of Acadia, said that many of Acadia’s visitors each year have never been there before, and likely are unfamiliar with the conditions they encounter while riding through the park.
“Roughly half of Acadia’s visitors are first-time visitors, which makes education about how to recreate responsibly and safely on the carriage roads really important,” Clement said. “Many visitors have never ridden a bike on a road shared with horses, for example, so helping them understand how to safely navigate those interactions benefits everyone. This education is important for people on both e-bikes and traditional bikes.”
Park officials are considering requiring a concessions contract for e-bikes within park boundaries, with hopes that the park would have more of a say in educating bikers on carriage road etiquette, Schneider said.
The contract would only apply to businesses that deliver e-bikes and customers to locations inside Acadia, not to companies with storefronts outside park borders and whose customers travel into the park on their own.
Woodworth, who once cycled competitively, agreed that visitors’ unfamiliarity with how to handle a bicycle, let alone an e-bike, is part of the problem.
“What I see is people that aren’t experienced in operating a bicycle and all of a sudden they can go 20 miles per hour uphill,” Woodworth said. “There’s nothing good that’s going to come from that. It’s dangerous.”
Another island resident who asked not to be identified said she hadn’t been on the carriage roads in more than a year because of the e-bikers and her concern for her safety, adding “it’s very depressing.”
“Someone’s going to get killed,” said the woman, who has lived on the island for nearly three decades. She said didn’t want to be identified because of the vitriol she’s experienced on social media after expressing safety concerns around e-bikes.
Curt Bonney, who has been horseback riding on the carriage roads since the 1970s, said traditional cyclists were “annoying, but you could work with them.” The e-bikes, however, often spook his horses, Bonney said, adding that he’s been on riding trips before during which a friend nearly lost control of their horse because an e-biker came too close to the 1,000 pound-animal.
“Then e-bikes came on the scene: at first they were a novelty, but now they go 20, 25, 30 miles an hour, they make no noise and it spooks the horse,” Bonney said. “All of a sudden, there’s a flock of 20 bikes coming right at you. They take up the whole road. They’re not being rude, they’re not being mean — they are unaware.”
But for many park visitors, e-bikes are the only way they can enjoy Acadia’s trademark picturesque carriage roads. E-bikes allow people who may be unable to use a traditional bike — because of their age or various physical limitations — to ride miles of the trail network.
“I think they’re an asset — we’ve gone 20 miles [today],” said Karin Saltonovitz, a visitor from the Chicago area, who was riding an e-bike Tuesday afternoon along the Eagle Lake carriage roads. “I don’t think I would have done it without it. There’s no way we could do that.”
Saltonovitz was riding between 11 and 17 mph, she said, adding that her experience had been peaceful and everybody was “playing by the rules and biking responsibly.”
Early Tuesday afternoon, roughly every 10 minutes, a swarm of e-bikers, many of whom were part of a tour group, stopped by the Eagle Lake boat landing, a popular carriage road access point. After a brief photo session, they would mount their e-bikes and continue on their tour or leisure ride.
John Frank, a 71-year-old first time e-bike rider visiting from Texas, was one of roughly a dozen members of a guided carriage road tour.
“I can understand the concern because sometimes it feels like I’m going faster than the suggested 20 mile per hour speed limit,” Frank said, adding that he wasn’t sure how fast he was going because his bike didn’t have a speedometer.
Another e-bike rider, Jeanette Viruet, of New Jersey, who declined to provide her full name, suggested the park should have some sort of speed radar that tickets — or somehow holds riders accountable — if they’re exceeding the speed limit. She said she noticed many of the faster riders are children or young people.
Mark and Danielle Nespeca, an elderly couple from California, rented e-bikes because they anticipated their ride around Eagle Lake would involve more hills. The couple was instructed by their rental company on how to ride safely and politely, they said.
The Nespecas were told to ride single-file, though they noticed that not all bikers were following those directions, they said.
Glenn Tucker, owner of Acadia Bike on Cottage Street in downtown Bar Harbor, said Tuesday that, like all local bike rental businesses, the only e-bikes his store rents out are in the Class 1 e-category. Tucker coordinated with the park service and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute for the e-bikes study. Researchers placed trackers on his fleet of e-bikes to assess how fast they were averaging.
“The statistics speak for themselves, but there are people out there who bring their own [higher class] bikes that have throttles on them,” Tucker said. “They’re not supposed to be on the carriage roads. I think there are some instances of speeding.”
Tucker’s shop provides renters with an extensive lesson on how to ride e-bikes safely on the carriage roads, he said, estimating that about half his customers rent e-bikes and the other half go for traditional bicycles. The informational session is more in-depth for e-bikes than it is for regular bicycles, he said.
The rental shop does not allow children under 14 to ride an e-bike. Tucker, who has run his rental shop for three decades, said he tries to encourage parents to rent regular bicycles for kids.
Tucker’s website reminds customers that his shop can cancel a reservation at an employee’s discretion if they are “not convinced that you are able to safely ride an e-bike.”
Some rental shops deliver e-bikes to various destinations around the park, including the Hulls Cove Visitor Center and Eagle Lake boat ramp.
“We’re not doing that, because it leads to congestion,” Tucker said. “It takes up and parking places and we don’t think the park needs that. We see the congestion, especially at the visitor center, but it’s also happening at Eagle Lake. We don’t play any part in that.”
Tucker only rents bicycles from his downtown storefront and does not deliver them to any areas of the park.
Tucker added he has not seen an uptick in bicycle-related accidents since the introduction of e-bikes.
“They do open accessibility to people who otherwise wouldn’t go out there, so that has been a positive,” Tucker said. “But it has led to some congestion on the carriage roads, and I think that’s especially a concern to walkers out there.”
Independent of the congestion, locals worry it may take a tragedy before the park addresses the safety concerns that come from the surge of e-bikes in Acadia.
“My biggest thing is that someone is going to get seriously hurt,” Gabbard said. “I would hate for it to take [that] for somebody to make some sort of change with what’s going on in the park.