Bicycling without a helmet? You can do that in Tacoma now
Tacoma will no longer require people to wear helmets when bicycling, skateboarding, roller-skating or riding a scooter in the city limits.
Tacoma City Council approved the first reading of an ordinance on Tuesday that in part repeals a section of city code requiring helmets for certain modes of transportation.
Currently, there is no state law requiring helmet use with bicycles, but the Washington State Department of Transportation keeps a running list of more than 20 cities that have passed their own rules. Tacoma first passed its helmet law in 1994.
People riding motorcycles in Tacoma still are required to wear helmets, which is a state law.
“This change won’t supersede Washington state helmet laws, including helmet laws for motorcycles, mopeds or motor-driven cycles, which will remain in effect in the City of Tacoma,” Liz Kaster, senior planner and active transportation coordinator with the city, said in an email.
The ordinance approved Tuesday makes other changes to city code, including:
Allows people to ride bicycles on sidewalks in business districts, while requiring them to yield to pedestrians.
Allows people to ride electric scooters in bike facilities, such as bike lanes.
Removes the requirement for people using a human-powered scooter, skateboard, roller skates to wear reflective devices at night.
Removes requirement to wear “sturdy, closed toe footwear” (but still highly recommended).
The changes come after the city completed its micro-mobility pilot program, which began in 2018 when the city entered into an agreement to allow companies Bird and Lime to deploy scooters and bikes on Tacoma streets with the intent of evaluating new and environmentally friendly transportation options. The pilot ended this spring, resulting in 350,000 trips taken by more than 87,000 unique users.
“This code review was spurred by our team’s work on micro-mobility; however, as we dug into the Tacoma Municipal Code as it relates to active transportation, it quickly became apparent that there’s some outdated, inconsistent code language that doesn’t align with best practices or city and state policy,” Kaster said at a City Council study session on June 23.
Council is expected to pass second reading of the ordinance on Tuesday, with the changes going into effect on July 21.
The city reached out to various community groups to discuss the code changes, including the Tacoma Area Commission on Disabilities, the Transportation Commission, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Technical Advisory Group, the Micromobility Stakeholder Group and the Downtown Tacoma Partnership.
Downtown on the Go community partnerships manager Hally Bert said by email on Wednesday that the transportation advocacy group is supportive of the changes, specifically removal of the helmet law.
Barb Chamberlain, WSDOT Active Transportation Division director, cited research showing disparate enforcement when it comes to pedestrian and bicyclist laws, including a 2016 study by the Department of Justice in Tampa, Florida that found Tampa Police Department’s use of bicycle stops “disproportionately burdened Black bicyclists.” Chamberlain also pointed out a pattern reported by the Seattle Times in 2017 that “a disproportionately high percentage of jaywalking tickets in Seattle are written to Black people.”
“Studies often find racial differences with Black, Indigenous and people of color receiving tickets at rates well above their proportion in the population as a whole,” Chamberlain said in an email. “This creates deep concern. If we are to say our streets are ‘safe,’ this needs to include feeling free from the threat of harm simply for being present in the street.”
In 2019, the Tacoma Police Department handed out 12 citations for people not wearing a helmet.
Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board did a report that suggested states adopt a mandatory bicycle helmet law and asked states to respond.
Gov. Jay Inslee told the board in a letter dated Feb. 13, 2020 that while the state supports protection provided by helmets, “changes to infrastructure do far more to reduce the chances that crashes will occur, thus saving more lives and preventing more injuries than helmets ever can.”
Even if not mandated by law, the city still encourages all riders to wear bicycle helmets, especially children.
“Helmets are effective and regardless of whether we have a helmet law in place, the City strongly encourages all people using human-powered and/or motorized bicycles, skateboards, roller skates, scooters, and similar modes to wear a helmet,” Kaster said.
This story was originally published July 4, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
