Riders on bicycles, e-bikes, scooters, e-scooters, golf carts and skateboards are now required to dismount and walk through the heart of the UMass Amherst campus under a new pedestrian-only zone that took effect this fall. The pilot safety initiative covers the core campus bounded by North Pleasant Street, Hicks Way, the Haigis Mall and Goessman Laboratory, and it comes after student voters flagged a wave of close calls with e-mobility devices.
The zone was detailed in reporting by the Greenfield Recorder, which covered UMass's rollout of the restrictions. Riders who want to keep moving on wheels are being redirected to North Pleasant Street, Hicks Way, and the path connecting the Whitmore Administration Building to North Pleasant, according to the same report. Commonwealth Honors College and most dormitories sit outside the affected core area, the Recorder noted, meaning the restrictions are concentrated in the busiest pedestrian corridors rather than campuswide.
Student Survey Numbers Drove the Push
The pilot grew directly out of student feedback gathered during the March 2026 UMass Student Government Association election, where more than 30 percent of referendum voters said they wanted e-mobility devices restricted or banned from campus entirely, per the Recorder's account. Separately, the Massachusetts Daily Collegian reported that 64.17% of participating student voters said they had experienced a near-miss collision with e-mobility devices since the start of the Fall 2025 semester, while 9.37% said they had actually been in an accident or been hit by one. That election drew 1,639 presidential votes and just a 6.87% student voter turnout, down from 16.9% turnout in 2025, the Collegian reported, though the safety concerns still carried the day among those who did cast ballots.
UMass developed the initiative after conversations about pedestrian and rider safety with the Faculty Senate, the Student Government Association and the Graduate Student Senate, according to the Recorder. Jeff Hescock said the pilot program prioritizes the safety and well-being of people who walk the campus daily, and he added that asking riders to dismount creates a more accessible and welcoming campus landscape, per the same account.
Ambassadors, Signs and New Storage on the Way
UMass plans to install signs marking the vehicle-dismount boundaries and will station pedestrian and rider safety ambassadors throughout the core campus during the semester, the Recorder reported. Those ambassadors are tasked with educating the community, distributing maps and guiding riders to nearby storage racks, according to the same reporting. The university also intends to expand parking zones for e-mobility devices at the perimeter of the restricted areas.
Come October, UMass will install outdoor solar-powered charging stations for e-bikes and e-scooters along with lockable storage areas, per the Recorder's report. Emergency vehicles and state- and vendor-approved maintenance vehicles are permitted to enter the pedestrian-only zone, and people with disabilities who depend on mobility devices are excluded from the policy, the article noted. UMass says it will assess next steps for the zone at the end of the semester.
Indoor Battery Rules Already in Place
The new outdoor dismount rule complements an existing UMass Amherst Environmental Health & Safety regulation that already bars electric bikes, e-scooters and electric skateboards from inside all university buildings, including residence halls, because of fire risks tied to lithium-ion batteries. That indoor restriction reflects a broader trend of university fire marshals nationally tightening rules on uncertified lithium-ion chargers following dorm fires.
The safety concerns behind campus rules like this one aren't limited to UMass. Health data analytics firm Truveta recorded a 7.5-fold surge in e-bike and e-scooter injury rates among U.S. children and teenagers between 2023 and 2026, a trend that has prompted trauma specialists at Mass General Brigham to publicly urge against motorized bike use by minors, as detailed in earlier Hoodline coverage of the regional trend. That coverage also noted that in July 2026, the Massachusetts Legislature's Joint Committee on Transportation sent Governor Maura Healey's proposed Ride Safe Act to a study order, shelving statewide e-bike legislation for the session and leaving schools like UMass to write their own rules in the absence of updated state statutes.
How UMass Compares to Other Campuses
UMass joins Montana State University, Harvard University, Arizona State University, the University of North Carolina, the University of Maryland and UC San Diego in adopting similar measures, according to the Recorder. Harvard's university-wide micromobility policy requires powered e-bikes and e-scooters to meet Underwriters Laboratories fire safety standards and mandates that riders dismount and walk devices through pedestrian-priority areas such as Harvard Yard. UC San Diego takes a different approach, enforcing an 8 mph speed cap on shared pathways and requiring dismounts along Library Walk only on weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., rather than an all-day boundary.
Other schools have gone further or taken different paths entirely. The University of Texas at Austin launched a geofenced Pedestrian Friendly Zone in August 2026 that automatically cuts motor power on shared Lime and Bird scooters entering its central campus, a system Hoodline detailed in its report on UT Austin's scooter dismount rules. Boston College took a blunter approach back in December 2022, enacting a total campus ban on electric motorized scooters while still allowing standard pedal-assist e-bikes to operate under traffic rules, according to The Heights.
The dismount policy does create some friction with UMass's identity as a cycling-friendly campus. The League of American Bicyclists has designated UMass Amherst a Bicycle Friendly University, holding Silver status from 2022 through 2026 as one of just eight higher education institutions in Massachusetts recognized for bikeable infrastructure. That history has fueled concern among traditional cyclists that blanket dismount rules penalize human-powered commuters alongside the motorized devices the pilot was designed to address.
