Massive E-Bike Crackdown Kicks Off In City Council

NEW YORK CITY — As e-bike crashes become increasingly common in the five boroughs, the City Council said Tuesday it would conduct a large-scale audit of the existing laws surrounding e-bikes and e-scooters, as well as examine several new policy proposals designed to regulate the two-wheelers.

Speaker Julie Menin said at a press conference Tuesday that the council would consider a whopping 17 new bills to make e-bikes and e-scooters safer, and host a large public hearing on Sept. 30.

"Every New Yorker deserves to move around our city freely and safely, regardless of how they get around," Menin said. "But too many people have been seriously injured or killed in crashes involving illegal, high-speed e-bikes, e-motos, and e-scooters."

The 17 bill proposals include a bill to require food delivery apps — like Uber Eats and Grubhub — to verify all mopeds are registered, a bill to prohibit the sale of faster e-bikes, and a bill to incentivize riders to trade in illegal e-bikes for legal ones.

"The City Council will bring together pedestrians, cyclists, deliveristas, transportation experts, advocates, and enforcement agencies to conduct a comprehensive review of every available option to make our streets safer," Menin said.

The safety audit comes as e-bike collisions are up by 31.7 percent this year in comparison to last year in New York City, with more than 500 collisions this year to date, and nearly 800 involving stand-up e-scooters, according to NYPD data.

In the past two weeks alone, four e-bike and e-scooter riders were killed in collisions with cars, including a 17-year-old boy near City Hall, a 49-year-old woman on the Upper West Side, a 20-year-old man in Dyker Heights, and a 45-year-old woman in Crown Heights.

"As crashes and fatalities continue to rise, we have a responsibility to make sure our laws reflect the realities on our streets today," Upper East Side Councilmember Virginia Maloney said.

For questions, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.