The Village Board recently proposed legislation that would ban riding bikes on the sidewalks within the Village for anyone over the age of 12. The board has been discussing updating its sidewalk code since the fall of 2025 and the intent is to better align the Village code with that of the State and to better protect pedestrians.
The proposed legislation went before public hearing on February 10th. The board listened to 2+ hours of public comment and thoughtfully considered what it would mean to ban people from riding on the sidewalk when there is no safe biking infrastructure in the Village. The public comments were made mostly by women and of all ages — from a 13 year-old who said biking is how she gets to work and how she sees her friends, to a 70 year-old who has to ride through the Village to get to the canal path. There were a couple comments from people who don’t bike, but who believe sidewalks are for pedestrians only. (You can watch a video of the meeting here. The discussion starts at the 45 min mark.)
Here’s the thing — If we had safe bike infrastructure, this would be a no-brainer. Of course sidewalks are for pedestrians and pedestrians should be given priority. AND until we have safe infrastructure for people who bike, don’t pit one vulnerable mode against another. The real enemy is speeding, aggressive motor vehicle traffic. Our main roads are built to move as much traffic through them as efficiently as possible. Pedestrians and cyclists are an after-thought (those of you who have to traverse 4-corners outside of a car know what I’m talking about).
Our kids rode their bikes to school, practices and to see friends. And they rode on the sidewalk. We trained them to yield to pedestrians, pay attention when crossing curb cuts and driveways, and to dismount and walk to use crosswalks to minimize confusion by drivers (drivers often aren’t expecting something fast moving like a bike to zoom across a crosswalk). And although we adults in the family prefer to ride in the street when possible to get to safe infrastructure like the canal path, we often have to ride on the sidewalk due to heavy vehicle traffic conditions. And we do so by yielding to pedestrians and doing all the things we taught our kids.
The Village Board tabled the legislation at the Feb 10th hearing and continued to discuss the issue at a subsequent workshop and meetings. There will be another public hearing (which means another opportunity for public comment) for a more reasonable updated legislation on March 24th at 6:30PM. We haven’t yet seen the new updated version of the legislation. We will update you and add it to this post as soon as the meeting packet is available. In the meantime, you can see Trustee Wilkes’ comments about the updated legislation in recent media coverage. And Trustee Lisa Cove provided this synopsis on her Facebook page:
Pedestrian Safety Initiative-
Our Village board has agreed to uphold the NYS electric bike restriction law to NOT allow any electric devices to include electric bikes or scooters on sidewalks in the Village. Please educate your friends and family. This will be enforced. Spring is approaching and we want to keep safety a priority for all.
Further discussion about minor changes to the legislation to include “walking speed”, “yielding distance”, changing helmet requirement to enforcing use for under 16 years of age and removing some districts (only Traditional Downtown District (TDD) and Schoen Place remain) from the dismount requirements were made. Legislation will be heard by you, the community, at the Public Hearing set for March 24th at 6:30pm.
It should be noted that municipalities in New York can choose to allow e-bikes and e-scooters, even though the NYS law prohibits them. This would then allow riders to use them on the sidewalks in those municipalities. The City of Rochester, for example, allows them. It sounds like the Village legislation will prohibit them altogether.
We will update you when the new version of the legislation is available. If you’d like to provide the Village Board with comments, please send them to the Village Clerk. And if you’d like to attend the public hearing on March 24th at 6:30, you can do so in-person or via Zoom.