I don't know. I saw someone on bike zip down the sidewalk and around a 90 degree corner at maybe 10, maybe 12 mph.
I thought at first it was an idiot conserving momentum by being unsafe on the sidewalk, but when they neither pedaled nor lost speed, I realized it was probably an ebike.
I'm not sure I like the idea of novices on bikes with motors.
Of course, there could be a mechanism that would only let you use the electric assist at speeds under 5 or 6 mph. Tht would be OK for the hills. (Boring. But safe.) It would keep people from being a motorized threat, and make them pedal a bit.
Most of use go up most hills faster than that, of course. But I'm not going up 18th Street or Negley averaging any faster than 6 mph. Ever.
I'm guessing 1-way trips would be a problem, though.
I went for a walk in Alexandria, VA with my father recently. They have the Captial Bikeshare program.
http://www.capitalbikeshare.com/station_map
At the highest point of our walk, we saw two people ride away with the last two bikes from the Rhodes & 16th St
station. Half an hour later, and maybe a hundred feet lower, we passed the Rosslyn Metro station, which had more than a dozen bikes.
They dont' charge for the first 30 minutes, so cruising down to the meter is free (both in $$ and in effort, it being down hill).
That implies a bike-moving dispatch and transportation system, along with the economies of scale for that.
The mild rises in Alexandria are nothing like the hills here.
An side on Captial bike share: the bikes they use look pretty good for some things. OTOH the racks are solidly made, but designed to hold a briefcase, but very little larger. No groceries on those bikes!
It appears someone deliberately made this choice, but I'm not sure why.