Safety is a balancing act that is crucial to get right. Now more than ever, advocates for bikes, e-bikes and other forms of “micromobility” need to advocate for that balance.
It’s no secret that the use of e-bikes has exploded in recent years. Whether it’s due to Citi Bike’s exponential growth or the explosion in demand for deliveries during the pandemic, e-bikes are now omnipresent on our streets. They are an environmentally conscious and truly viable option to replace many car trips — a way to get around that New York City should embrace.
However, the integration of e-bikes into our streetscape has been hasty, unmanaged, and dangerously inadequate — the city was slow to recognize the danger of uncertified batteries as well as pedestrians' unfamiliarity with faster micromobility devices often in bike lanes because the roads are too unsafe. There is also a perception among some pedestrian that they are more at risk now because of electric bikes and gas-powered mopeds, which is why organizations like the E-Vehicle Safety Alliance and its allies in government want to license e-bikes and restrict their use.
Such proposals are heavy-handed and, as I explained last year, will deter and discourage e-bike ridership without effectively ensuring their safe operations on the street.
But these proposals may yet gain traction because of safety concerns of real victims. Being hit by a car driver is a life-altering event, but being struck by the rider of an e-bike or moped is equally deserving of sympathy and attention. It is imperative to address and reinforce safety while encouraging e-bike use. And there are methods to do that, while encouraging the use of e-bikes.
As such, advocates must be proactive in conversations about e-bike regulation and safety, instead of simply pushing back against bad ideas. Otherwise, cynical and disingenuous opponents of micro-mobility will win the day.
To start, street design choices help shape issues like speeding, riding on the sidewalk, riding against traffic, and even running red lights. A clear, straight path will tempt speeding by any road user, whether on an e-bike or in a car. The absence of adequate bike lanes, as well as the omnipresence of Citi Bike docks on our sidewalks, as opposed to in the roadway, can entice many riders to ride on against traffic or on the sidewalk. Having a well-connected, protected bike lane network with two-way lanes wherever possible is a critical first step in trying to curtail some of these issues.
But other design choices can go further:
- “Daylighting” more intersections by removing parking spots at corners to improve visibility — and reduce potential for collisions — for both pedestrians and micro-mobility users. New York City is currently the only jurisdiction in the state exempt from laws prohibiting parking too close to intersections and crosswalks.
- Installing pedestrian bulb-outs that extend sidewalks, rather than pedestrian islands, to create a large, continuous section for pedestrians to wait while introducing a curve at intersections that slows e-bikes down.
- Reinforcing bike lanes with bollards or jersey barriers on both sides to keep bikes in their lanes and to keep cars out.
- Physically splitting wider and two-way bike lanes to reduce speeds near intersections, like on the Hudson River Greenway.
- Move all existing bike parking and Citi Bike docks into the roadway, adjacent to bike lanes whenever possible. If a dock can’t be placed in the street (like the electrified Citi Bike docks), position them on the curb with the bikes oriented so they back out directly into the street. Depress the sidewalk underneath it like a garage, and remove parking adjacent to the dock, blocking it off with bollards so only bikes can get through.
We also need additional secure (on-street) bike parking, battery swap stations, and delivery worker hubs.
Taken together, these changes would remove most reasons for cyclists to be on the sidewalk, give them a safe place to charge and swap batteries, and slow them down when approaching intersections without sacrificing their safety — all while granting pedestrians a lot more space and visibility.
It’s also critical that we ensure that infrastructure remains unobstructed and usable. Blocked and inaccessible bike lanes make any physical changes a moot point; Council Member Lincoln Restler’s bill to enforce bike and bus lane obstructions is one way to go about this.
Yes, regulation does play a role
Licensing for Citi Bikes is redundant since the bikes already have identification numbers on their sides. Citi Bike should instead improve its existing system by moving its bike ID numbers onto the back wheel cover, a far more visible location with room for larger IDs that could be made harder to scratch off.
Citi Bike can locate every e-bike in its fleet and track rider history, thanks to GPS and RFID chips. If a victim of a crash doesn’t catch the bike ID, he or she should still be allowed to file an evidence-based report with Citi Bike with the time and location of the crash, which would allow customer service to backtrace the incident to the responsible rider. Citi Bike should suspend or ban riders if they’re responsible for multiple pedestrian injuries.
As for delivery workers, the state legislature should pass state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s commercial licensing bill, which puts the onus of registration and identification on employers.
Other proposals burden the workers, not the tech companies that incentivize reckless riding. Making matters worse, the added cost of registration would accelerate the growing trend of workers abandoning e-bikes for mopeds, which are heavier, faster, louder, dirtier, and more dangerous.
Another proposal — reclassifying e-bikes as Class B mopeds — is also a nonstarter because doing so blurs the lines between e-bikes and mopeds and would also push more riders towards the latter. And since mopeds are currently banned from bike lanes, looping e-bikes into the definition would force their riders into dangerous auto traffic.
This push for new regulations also introduces an opportunity to push for financial incentives for e-bikes. The legislature should also look to pass things like tax breaks for businesses and rebates for individuals to counteract the potential for increased costs, something Denver does already.
Ham-fisted attempts to crack down on undesirable aspects of new introductions to the city streetscape can be a death knell to great things, especially given the plethora of environmental benefits that e-bikes have. We’re seeing this play out with outdoor dining right now: It was inevitable that the successful but hastily concocted 2020-era program was going to need regulations — and that allowed opponents to seize the opportunity to sabotage the program's viability.
E-bikes must not suffer the same fate. Pedestrian safety and e-bike adoption are often falsely put at odds. If we’re serious about the lives and health of all road users, we should want to foster e-bike expansion while enhancing safety for pedestrians and riders alike through policies that ensure the inevitable and growing presence of e-bikes on the street is as safe as possible.
There are sensible solutions, but everyone loses if policymakers sacrifice e-bike safety in the name of pedestrian safety.
