Waterford adds electric cycles to motor pool

The city’s goal of improving the trails along the Tuolumne River was the key reason it applied for a grant to purchase a couple of electric motorcycles for Waterford Police Services, Chief Mike Radford said Friday.

The $40,000 grant the city was awarded by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District nearly covered the cost of two Zero motorcycles, purchased for $44,000, said City Manager Tim Ogden.

The department has the two cycles and is working to get officers certified as quickly as possible to use them on patrol, Radford said.

These are the first motorcycles of any type for the department, the chief said, and will be very useful in places the force’s Crown Victorias and Ford Explorers can’t go.

“We tend to have issues with homeless campers down by the river: drug use, vandalism, certain other things that go on down there that aren’t conducive” to the paths being used recreationally, Radford said.

“We’ve always had a difficult time patrolling there,” he said. “You have to do a foot patrol, and the area you could cover was very small. It wasn’t successful at all.”

Since he became chief in February 2014, Radford said, he has asked the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department’s off-road vehicle unit to do a sweep of the river area two or three times a year to let people know they cannot camp there. Officers then return about a week later to cite people still there, and the city cleans up the area.

“But it was costing the city some funds because we had to pay the cost of the county team,” he said. “It was really successful, and we love being able to clean up the river, but we realized it was something we could do ourselves if we looked for the opportunity. We went for the grant and got it.”

One of the main uses for the electric motorcycles will be a two-person team that can ride along the river paths once a day, twice a day, once a week – however often is deemed necessary, Radford said.

Right now, the dirt trails along the Tuolumne aren’t developed in any way, “but people use them all the time,” he said. “The city is looking to make it a safe environment” and develop the trails – perhaps pave them – for walking, running and biking. Periodic patrols with the electric cycles, officers “staying visible,” will go a long way to creating that safer environment.

The cycles will be used in other ways, too. They’re equipped with emergency lights and sirens, and Radford foresees their use in traffic patrols and at special events such as parades and street fairs. “It’s easy to drive them around in cramped locations.”

The Modesto, Ceres and Ripon police departments also have electric motorcycles in their motor pools.

Ripon bought two Zero cycles in May last year, also with grant money from the air district. That department, too, uses the cycles for off-road patrols, along the Stanislaus River.

About a month earlier, the Ceres department rolled out three Zeroes purchased through an air district grant. In announcing the purchase, its chief spoke of the zero-emission vehicles’ contribution to protecting the environment and decreasing officers’ “exposure to the exhaust of traditional motorcycles.”

This story was originally published May 10, 2015 at 6:19 PM with the headline "Waterford adds electric cycles to motor pool."