A proposal to ban e-bikes from city parks received a big thumbs down from a lower Manhattan community board last week — despite a personal pitch from the bill's sponsor, Council Member Vickie Paladino.
Members of Manhattan Community Board 2's transportation and parks committees voted overwhelmingly not to support the Queens Republican's legislation — with supporters and opponents of stricter anti-e-bike regulations in agreement that Paladino's proposal would fail to address safety and be difficult to enforce.
"We should recognize ... what [the bill] is trying to do: make it more harmonious and safer for people in parks," said committee Chair Shirley Secunda. "[But] this is not fleshed out. ... We cannot support the bill. A larger look should be taken."
The Council proposal has 21 Council co-sponsors, including Manhattan reps Julie Menin, Gale Brewer and Erik Bottcher, but Paladino did not provide data to back up her claims that e-bikes pose a particular safety risk in parks and seemed unfamiliar with how the law would positively impact the Little-Italy-to-West-Village district — city rules already prohibit e-bikes riders in all of the parks within the district's borders.
Since last year, an ongoing Parks Department pilot program has permitted e-bikes and e-scooters on city-owned park drives and greenways, none of which run through Manhattan CB 2.
After mentioning unspecified "issues with enforcement of e-bikes," committee member Susanna Aaron added that "the bill does not address this and is redundant and is not necessary in our district."
Other board reps took an even stronger position against the bill. Parks committee member Edward Siegel called out Paladino's broader anti-bike agenda, saying that the Council member "would get rid of all the e-bikes in the city if she could." And transportation committee member Janet Liff said Paladino had "just kind of thrown the book at everything without any nuances."
Even board members who oppose e-bikes dismissed the bill as inadequate, with one panelist saying that pending state legislation to license all e-bikes and license delivery workers would be more impactful.
"I oppose this bill because it's just, like, a little Band-Aid/propaganda thing and it sounds good if you tweet out that you co-sponsor it," said Transportation Committee member Jeannine Kiely. "There's a couple of pieces of state legislation that are proposed ... that are broader ways to address some of these issues."
The concerns of CB2 members last Wednesday echoed those of one of the bill's sponsors, Brewer, of the Upper West Side, who told Streetsblog earlier this year that she signed onto the bill in response to "nasty pressure" from e-bike opponents even though she was skeptical it could be enforced.
In a recent safety study, the Central Park Conservancy notably declined to endorse a ban on e-bikes — instead calling for more protected bike lanes.
Wednesday's joint meeting of the board's parks and transportation committees occurred hours after the assassin of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson reportedly fled the scene of the crime via e-bike — and that incident did not go unmentioned during the hearing.
Committee members questioned whether a difficult-to-enforce ban on all e-bikes would have resulted in the alleged killer's interdiction before he fled New York City via taxi and bus. Paladino is certain it would.
"Once it becomes law, if you're sitting in the park, for example, having a picnic, or your kids are playing, you would actually be able to call the police officer," Paladino said. "When you're in a neighborhood, you see the same people all the time. You have repeat people constantly doing the same thing, good or bad."
