Oak Bluffs voters could determine whether mopeds will be rented only to licensed drivers and only without no passengers allowed on the back.
Oak Bluffs will be holding a special town meeting at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School Performing Arts Center on Nov. 4 at 7 pm. The warrant consists of 14 articles.
The warrant article that has attracted the most attention is a set of proposed bylaw changes in how mopeds will be rented in town. The proposed change would require that only adults who possess a driver’s license be allowed to rent a moped, and that passengers would not be allowed to accompany them. Currently, the town’s bylaw only bars business owners from renting a two-seater moped to an adult accompanied by a child shorter than 4 feet, 8 inches.
The proposed bylaw would also decrease the number of moped rental business licenses from five to three. (While the town can currently issue five licenses, there are currently just three rental shops.) It would also decrease the number of vehicle registration decals that can be issued to these businesses from 308 to 178 per year.
Moped rentals have long been a contentious issue on the Island, following a number of tragic and gruesome accidents. The Oak Bluffs Select Board decided to bring the issue to voters after Islanders highlighted the heightened risk of an accident with a passenger riding on the back of a moped.
Other warrant articles requested bylaw amendments, such as clerical updates for the wetlands regulations, or related to town bodies and personnel –– for example, changing the title of harbormaster to “marina manager,” and recodifying the capital improvement committee bylaw.
As a life long motorcycle rider, absolutely a Driver’s license, if not an additional motorcycle endorsement, no passengers in either case, and when will electric bicycles be addressed. If not soon, they too will soon become an issue similar to mopeds.
E-bikes are a menace on the bike paths. Get the e-bikes off the bike paths (Massachusetts allows them on bike paths but local jurisdictions can prohibit them – please do!) and I guarantee, once they start impeding automobile traffic, you will then see a proliferation of “E-bikes are Dangerous” bumper stickers.
It’s time to admit what everyone on Martha’s Vineyard already knows: mopeds and our Island roads are a deadly mix.
For decades, residents have watched visitors leave on stretchers — or worse. At least eight people have died in moped crashes since the 1980s, and dozens more have been seriously hurt. Every summer brings new headlines, new trauma, and the same tired debate.
Oak Bluffs voters now have a chance to end it. Limiting rentals to licensed drivers and banning passengers is a step, but the goal should be clear — to phase out moped rentals completely. Our roads are too narrow, our traffic too heavy, and our patience too tested.
With the rise of modern e-bikes — safe, quiet, and environmentally friendly — there’s no reason to keep these unstable gas-powered machines in circulation. E-bikes are the future of Island travel. And let’s be clear: e-bikes; not electric motorcycles.
It’s time for Oak Bluffs to lead and for the Vineyard to finally say: no more mopeds. We’ve buried enough proof.
While I align with Murray’s perspective on gas powered machines, I must take exception regarding E-bikes.
We, at least in the MVCAM Campground, are seeing E-bikes speeding along our roads, which are also our pedestrian / tourist walkways, as well as our sidewalks and pathways. While not as noxious as gas powered machines, they has their own potentially fatal flaw – their quiet nature. You don’t hear them coming and that, like early electric cars, makes them dangerous in their own unique way. Coincidentally, we also have similar issues with regular bicycles powered by ‘on vacation’ riders on our walk and pathways.
From a safety perspective, E-bikes are no more safe than any wheeled conveyance, including e-boards of multiple types, when mixed with cars, motor cycles, scooters, bikes, strolling tourists, vacationers, seasonal residents, or full-time residents.
While the sky is not falling, we all need to our eyes on the ‘road’ (and not our phones) while we traverse this lovely land and the lives we bring to it.
And Right On to Sara as well!
E-bikes are a menace on the bike paths. Get the e-bikes off the bike paths (Massachusetts allows them on bike paths but local jurisdictions can prohibit them – please do!) and I guarantee, once they start impeding automobile traffic, you will then see a proliferation of “E-bikes are Dangerous” bumper stickers.
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