New York City's streets will become more dangerous with fewer people choosing to ride bicycles if Mayor Adams forges ahead with his 15-mile-per-hour speed limit for e-bikes, a former top city transportation policy official warned.
The controversial proposal is up for a public hearing on July 14, and more than 300 people have already voiced their thoughts on the city's online comment page — largely in opposition — including Michael Replogle, a former Department of Transportation policy director for six years under Mayor Bill de Blasio and DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg.
"I strongly oppose the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is an ill-considered idea to improve safety which will be counterproductive," Replogle wrote. "It is also likely to put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet."
The speed cap will put cyclists in danger by forcibly slowing them down next to drivers in multi-ton SUVs and trucks, who cause virtually all traffic deaths and injuries, according to DOT data.
That amounts to a war on bikes and vulnerable people who rely on them for work, such as immigrant delivery workers, said Replogle.
"It’s a war on bikes, it’s a war on immigrants, and it undermines traffic safety," he told Streetsblog on Wednesday. "I think it’s Adams basically trying to mount a populist assault on cycling."
Need for speed
Replogle, who founded the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and now works as a consultant based in Maryland, worked on the initial rollout of e-bikes in Citi Bike's fleet in 2018. Then as now, he felt that the e-bike's faster speeds would keep riders safe by allowing them to keep up with car traffic.
"Under Mayor de Blasio, we worked very hard to get e-bikes made part of the Citi Bike shared bike system," Replogle explained. "We debated within the administration whether to limit the speed of the electric Citi Bikes to 15 or 20 miles per hour, and I and others argued that 20 mph was a more sensible limit because it better corresponded to matching car traffic speeds, which cyclists need to do to remain safe when they’re biking in traffic."
Motorists are to blame for virtually all traffic violence, but they will still be able to go up to 35 mph under Mayor Adams's scheme – since speed cameras don't issue violations until they exceed the city's posted 25 mph speed limit by 10 mph.
That's a terrifying prospect to Replogle, who routinely commuted by e-bike on busy corridors like Third Avenue when he worked at DOT.
"I can tell you it feels much safer as a cyclist if you’re going close to the speed of the traffic than if you’re going half the speed of traffic," Replogle said.
Larger differences in speeds have shown to produce more crashes between cars on highways, according to a significant body of research.
Hizzoner's bike attack flies in the face of years of work under Mayors Bloomberg and de Blasio to grow cycling as a serious transportation option, in order to reduce traffic crashes and greenhouse gas emissions, Replogle charged.
De Blasio in 2018 set the goal of increasing the share of sustainable transportation modes — walking, cycling, mass transit and shared for-hire vehicles — from 67 percent at the time to 80 percent by 2050. The largest growth was to come from bikes, upping their share from 1 percent to 10 percent – a 10-fold increase.
"This speed limit on bikes and the criminalization of bicycle traffic offenses work against those goals," Replogle said.
The benefits are clear as day in Paris, where pollution dropped by more than half over the past 20 years as the French capital aggressively expanded bike infrastructure and reduced access to private motor vehicles.
Zero vision
Mayor Adams has peddled the lower speed limits arguing that the Vision Zero policy he inherited from his predecessor had focused on cars for "far too long," despite car and truck drivers being responsible for 99.96 percent of reported traffic injuries.
The mayor and his Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch also unleashed the NYPD to crack down on cycling, issuing criminal court summonses for low-level offenses like going through red lights or riding on the sidewalk since late April.
The sweeps have incited fear among the city's e-bike-dependent delivery workers especially, many of whom are immigrants fearing any interface with the criminal justice system under the Trump Administration.
Citi Bike's operator Lyft bowed to pressure from Adams's First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro and lowered its speed cap in advance of the rule change a month ago.
Instead of these punitive policies, the mayor and the City Council should finally implement the citywide 20 mile-per-hour speed limit that the state enabled a year ago when lawmakers in Albany passed Sammy's Law, Replogle urged.
DOT has started lowering the max speeds at a tiny fraction of the city's streets, while the Council under Speaker Adrienne Adams has sat on its hands with no plans in sight.
Council members have moved faster with mirroring legislation to lower e-bike speed limits to 15 miles per hour through a law change, introduced by Manhattan Council Member Keith Powers in June.
City Hall mouthpieces have backed the policies saying that e-bike safety concerns come up at public meetings across the city, but Replogle countered the data should outweigh the vibes.
"The fact that people complain about e-bikes can happen completely free of factual underpinnings of e-bikes being a serious safety problem," he said.
Community feedback
Speaking of feedback, a look at the comments of the e-bike speed rule change's website shows a chorus of calls on the DOT to reverse course.
One commenter said riding an e-bike helped her continue exercising while she was going through breast cancer treatment, and has continued using the electrified two-wheeler on her commutes.
"I’m so thankful for the steps the city has made to make it safer, and thus more enjoyable, to bike in the city. This proposed rule goes in the other direction," wrote Maria Boustead. "It feels simply mean-spirited, intended to discourage people from cycling, thus making streets less safe for everyone — while exposing thousands of New Yorkers to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation just for riding a bike."
Another public commenter said that the slower e-bikes will slow down trips and jack up the price to ride a Citi Bike e-bike, since those charge by the minute.
"This will result in a notable cost increase for users, now facing longer ride times as a result of reduced speed," wrote Alex Izen.
And a third called it an "absolutely foolish decision," given the real danger on the roads: cars.
"Of all the dangers on the road — e-bikes are the ones you’re going to lower? Cars cause the absolute majority of fatalities, and yet you’re trying to slow e-bikes to a crawl," commented Nathan Dennis. "How about making more protected bike lanes, suspending licenses of dangerous CAR drivers, and removing illicit dirt bikes from the roads?
"This is an absolutely foolish decision."
Reached for comment, DOT spokesperson Vin Barone referred to Adams's announcement from a month ago about the lower speed limits, and pointed to an agency press release from Wednesday about lower traffic deaths so far this year.
The DOT's press release implied that Adams's previous move to lower Citi Bike speeds to 18 miles per hour in 2024 contributed a decline in e-bike fatalities from nine last year to six this year.
Barone also questioned whether e-bike riders going faster were safer, given the studies about speed differences looked at cars on highways, "but not across modes or on local streets," and pointed to the city's e-scooter share program in the Bronx and Queens, which caps speeds at 15 miles per hour and has not logged any traffic deaths.
DOT will hold a virtual public hearing on its e-bike speed limit on July 14 at 10 a.m. Tune in via Zoom here. You can also leave a comment via the rules website, email rules@dot.nyc.gov, or send mail to New York City Department of Transportation, 55 Water Street Room/Floor: 9th Floor ; New York, New York 10041.
