Sparks fl y in debate over electric bicycles
BY GABE HERMAN
As the city’s bicycle culture continues
to grow, electric bikes
remain a fl ashpoint regarding
pedestrian safety and which types of
e-bikes – and what type of speed —
should be allowed.
The city started allowing pedal-assist
bicycles this past summer, which were
recently added to the CitiBike program
and go up to 20 miles per hour. Socalled
throttle bikes — which have the
speed control on the handlebar grip,
like motorcycles — can go up to about
25 mph and don’t require pedaling for
the motor to work.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has been outspoken
against throttle bikes. He has
declared them illegal under existing
state law and lauded police crackdowns
and seizures of them.
It hasn’t been lost on transportation
advocates that outlawed throttle bikes
tend to be used more by deliverymen
who are often immigrants or poorer
New Yorkers, while pedal-assist bikes
tend to have more upper-class riders.
Recent legislation introduced in the
City Council in late November tries to
address the issue by legalizing all ebikes
and capping speeds at 20 mph,
while also legalizing e-scooters, another
emerging transportation device,
which would be capped at 15 mph. The
proposed law would also create a pilot
bike-share program for e-bikes, and
help lower-income New Yorkers get
their e-bikes altered to adhere to new
regulations.
At a December town hall on the Upper
East Side for City Council District
4, de Blasio was asked about e-bikes by
Claire Brennan, a member of Community
Board 6. She said she is a native
New Yorker from Stuyvesant Town,
a graduate student at Hunter College,
and a user of pedal-assist bikes through
CitiBike. She recalled a pedal-assist
ride when she saw e-bikes being confi scated
from deliverymen at 20th St. and
Second Ave.
“Why am I able to zip down Second
Ave. on an e-bike with a smile on my
face, with fresh legs, something that
makes my day much easier, but people
are being criminalized and lives are being
ruined?” she asked. “This seems
like more of a labor issue, or immigration.”
De Blasio responded fi rst that they
were enforcing state law.
“We don’t want to undermine anyone’s
livelihood,” he continued. “But
we are fi rst and foremost concerned
about safety. There is a safety problem
with e-bikes going the wrong way on
streets, driving recklessly.”
The city does not have safety data
about e-bikes, though traffi c deaths
have decreased to record lows in the
city after de Blasio’s Vision Zero program
began in 2014.
The number of electric bikes on the streets continues to grow, and now electric scooters are also becoming
increasingly popular.
A police offi cer from the 13th Precinct,
which includes Gramercy and
Stuyvesant Town, joined the town hall
conversation about throttle bikes.
“It’s a large, large complaint in the
13th Precinct, and Manhattan South
for that matter,” he said. “As the mayor
pointed out, they are quite menacing.
So, yes, we have confi scated 139 year
to date and we’re going to keep going
until we get it under control.”
This statement brought loud applause
from most of the audience, as
well as a smattering of boos.
Steve Vaccaro, a local lawyer and
advocate for pedestrian and bike-crash
victims, said there is little actual difference
between throttle and pedal-assist
bikes, the latter which he said require
little pressure on the pedal to work.
“There’s a discriminatory treatment
of the e-bikes that people of color use,
and poor people use,” he said.
Vaccaro prefers traditional bicycles
for safety and health reasons, and said
electric bikes, scooters and similar
transports should be capped at 15 mph
to prevent two different traffi c fl ows in
bike lanes. Basically, he said e-bike riders
often disregard traditional cyclists
and “do whatever they want” in the
bike lanes. He favors letting professional
riders like deliverymen get trained
to be allowed to ride at 20 mph, and
if they violate laws, they would then be
bumped back down to 15 mph.
“Try to infl uence behavior with incentives
rather than by hiding behind
the bushes and having them pull some
technical traffi c violation, and then taking
their bike away from them, which is
what’s going on,” Vaccaro said.
Joe Cutrufo, communications director
for the nonprofi t Transportation Alternatives,
supports more electric bikes
and scooters but said more bike lanes
are also needed, since there are currently
only 200 miles of protected bike
lanes for 6,000 miles of city streets.
“More people on the street traveling
on two wheels, as opposed to traveling
in cars, that’s a good thing,” he said.
“But we need to accommodate those
people.”
Meanwhile, Joanna Cawley, executive
director of Carnegie Hill Neighbors
on the Upper East Side, said that while
there are no bike lanes in their area,
there are plenty of cyclists that need
to watch out more carefully for pedestrians,
and that citywide, bikes should
stay off the sidewalks. Her group agrees
with the mayor’s opposition to throttle
bikes on the basis of safety and speed
issues.
“One thing that’s concerning about
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
electric bikes is that they don’t make
noise when they’re coming up behind
you,” she said. “So I would imagine if
they become more popular, some sort
of noise-making device should be on
each one.
“And I think the refl ex issue with
little kids and older people is something
that everyone needs to take into
account,” she added of the dangers of
fast-moving e-bikes.
Cawley said the city needs to strictly
enforce bicycle rules for everyone’s
safety, including pedestrians, because,
as she put it, “Electric bikes are here
to stay.”
Uber lobbied the city in recent
months to add up to 200,000 more ebikes
to its ride-sharing program. City
bicycle usage over all grew threefold in
the last decade, and is now up to nearly
500,000 bike rides daily.
Cutrufo said a traffi c effort like Vision
Zero is not only smart for safety,
but politically, too.
“I don’t think we’re ever going back
to an era where a candidate can be taken
seriously who wants to rip up bike
lanes and that sort of thing,” he said.
“We’re beyond that now.”
When asked if bicycle culture will
only continue to grow in the city, he
simply said, “We’re optimistic.”
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