City Council progressives are outraged by the NYPD's new policy to criminalize cycling, but Council Speaker Adrienne Adams says more discussion is needed before the body takes action against a policy that experts say puts immigrant workers at risk.
On Wednesday, Los Deliveristas Unidos rallied at City Hall to demand the NYPD stop its escalation of cycling violations from traffic tickets to criminal summonses that require presence in court, a policy that started on April 28, as Streetsblog reported.
Progressive Council members Alexa Avilés (D-Sunset Park), Tiffany Cabán (D-Astoria), Sandy Nurse (D-Bushwick), Shahana Hanif (D-Kensington), Crystal Hudson (D-Crown Heights), and Lincoln Restler (D-Williamsburg) joined the rally to slam the Adams administration and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch for the policy, which was implemented with no prior conversation with the City Council or the Department of Transportation.
Council members want the legislature to protest Tisch's policy change, but Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said there needs to be more discussion. In addition, she failed to condemn the policy at an unrelated press conference on Wednesday.
“Discussions are vital when it comes to any legislation put before this Council,” the Speaker told Streetsblog. "Discussions are ongoing because there are many many points of view, be they positive or not. So we will continue to discuss this very important subject. Many of us do feel very strongly about it and discussions will go on as appropriate." (This was more or less the same answer on May 13, when she told Streetsblog that “discussions in the Council remain ongoing.”)
When asked to clarify her own feelings on the policy, she was lukewarm.
“I don't think that there is any value to criminalizing cyclists who are cycling lawfully,” she said, declining to discuss whether cyclists who violate low-level traffic rules should be handed criminal summonses or regular parking tickets.
Two enforcement systems
The new policy represents unequal enforcement, said the progressives at the rally. E-bike riders, the majority of whom are immigrant workers, will have to leave work for hours to go to court in person, while drivers — whose vehicles represent a far greater danger to the public — will still be able to pay their non-criminal summonses online in seconds.
Failure to appear in court will lead to an arrest warrant, which can be a deportation ticket for immigrants.
"It sets up this harmful double standard with two classes of laws and enforcement systems," said Cabán, a former public defender. "Criminalization is lazy and is a slap in the face to those who are striving for true safety. It does not make us safer, it is not solution oriented."
In 2024, 37 pedestrians were injured in 179 reported e-bike collisions, but 9,610 pedestrians were injured overall, so e-bike riders caused just 0.4 percent of pedestrian injuries, according to NYPD stats.
"We have more aggressive enforcement against bicycle riders than car drivers. How does that make sense? It’s backwards," said Restler.
Anti-bike administration
Rallygoers said that the mayor and his top cop are using the policy to target the immigrant workforce.
"This is nothing new this is an administration that has chosen once again to criminalize poverty, working class people, and immigrant workers," said Avilés. "We know at the heart of this is a mayor that is ultimately compromised."
Mayor Adams, who once said he would create an entirely new government agency to regulate the app companies who profit off delivery work (remember the Department of Sustainable Delivery?) has now shifted gears, choosing to punish the workers rather than their corporate bosses as he once considered, according to a draft of a bill that remains stalled.
"We know that our streets are safe when there is clear and consistent infrastructure," said Transportation Alternatives Bronx and Uptown organizer, Anna Berlanga. "We’re enacting criminal summonses before we regulate the app industry."
Part of the context of the alleged “Wild West” feel on New York City streets is the harsh reality of life as an app delivery worker: hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are using delivery apps that have promised that the items they want will be delivered quickly to their homes.
"[Delivery workers are] doing something that every single New Yorker is demanding. We need a full recognition of the commercial bike economy and we need the facilities for it," said Nurse.
For Deliveristas, it's personal
Immigrant delivery workers have been fighting for labor protections since 2020, when the city shut down for COVID-19 and the delivery workforce filled a crucial role in making sure New Yorkers had what they needed.
Black and Latino New Yorkers are already disproportionately targeted by the NYPD, and immigration lawyers warn that criminalizing e-bike traffic violations could turn bike lanes into a deportation pipeline, making trouble for the workers who are going through the subjective asylum seeker process.
"[The policy] represents a punitive spectacle designed to distract from the city’s political failure to address the root causes of transportation safety problems, merely scapegoating the city’s working class – and deliveristas above all – instead of offering any bold or innovative solutions," Los Deliveristas Unido said in a press release.
The workers, who were once deemed “essential” by the city’s power-players, feel like they’re used for political gain when it’s convenient and thrown under the bus when solutions become more difficult.
“When the city shut down, we stepped up. We risked everything to keep New Yorkers fed—and we did it with pride,” said Gustavo Ajche, leader of Los Deliveristas Unidos and co-founder of Worker’s Justice Project. “They’re not going after the ones profiting off our backs—they’re coming after Deliveristas and the cyclist community. This isn’t about safety. It’s about criminalizing our work and the very bikes we rely on to earn a living, to move safely, and to survive. … This city is ours, too. And we’re not going anywhere.”
