Lower East Side Panel Joins Growing Chorus Against Tisch’s E-Bike Criminalization

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s criminal crackdown on e-bike riders must “immediately end,” a Manhattan community board unanimously resolved this week.

The entirety of Community Board 3 on the Lower East Side voted on Tuesday night to condemn the NYPD policy under Tisch and Mayor Adams to issue criminal summons for minor traffic violations committed by e-bike users — adding its voice to the growing chorus of New Yorkers making clear they disapprove of the sweeping, punitive crackdown that threatens to put immigrant delivery workers in the crosshairs of ICE.

NYPD must “immediately end the policy of issuing criminal court summonses to cyclists for low-level traffic violations and find another way to mitigate lack of compliance with regulations,” CB3 said in its resolution.

Police have targeted cyclists with criminal court summonses for minor traffic violations for going on three months at the behest of top police brass and the mayor. Cyclists have found themselves charged for violations as minor as stopping partway into intersections and wearing headphones.

Meanwhile, car drivers who commit similar violations get slapped with mere fines — despite posing more danger to pedestrians, an approach multiple attendees of an earlier meeting slammed as “disproportionate.”

“It’s really about the treatment and harassment of people,” said Elizabeth Adams of Transportation Alternatives, who spoke in favor of the resolution at the board’s June 8 transportation committee meeting. “The numbers have shot up an astounding degree.”

Summonses for e-bike users have skyrocketed ten-fold since the police began their campaign against two-wheelers In April, Gothamist reported on Wednesday. About 6,000 cyclists have had to show up to court due, including more than 300 who received tickets within CB3’s borders.

Delivery drivers forced to report to court for their hearings risk losing a day’s pay stuck in the bureaucratic morass of the city’s judicial system.

“This is really a focus of the NYPD,” Adams said. “It is particularly endangering delivery workers, people who are undocumented. … We are not exempt from the larger world we live in. The federal government is doing really scary things to people who do not have full documentation, every single day. We certainly don’t want to see New York City add to that or support that.”

Members of both the board and public who spoke at the June 8 meeting worried that Tisch’s push to send delivery drivers to criminal court clears a path for the Trump administration to label them “criminals,” arrest them and deport them.

“What are we, as a committee, standing for morally if we’re not defending immigrant communities?” asked Shawn Garcia, a committee member and the director for advocacy at Transportation Alternatives.

The crackdown is just one front in the mayor and police commissioner’s war on cyclists.

Over the course of his tenure, Mayor Adams has abandoned key street safety projects and instituted a 15-mph speed limit on all e-bikes in recent months, much to the chagrin of safety advocates and cyclists.

Furthermore, evidence suggests that the rationale behind the crackdown is, in fact, completely backward.

Data obtained by Streetsblog shows that the number of pedestrians injured — only 18 from January 1 to April 30 — at the wheels of e-bike riders dropped by almost 50 percent in the months leading up to the Commissioner’s new policy, compared to the year prior.

Meanwhile, city data mapped by Crashmapper shows that car drivers have injured almost 26,000 people, including almost 5,000 pedestrians and 2,500 cyclists, during the year thus far — suggesting that Hizzoner should reconsider his priorities as he hopes, in desperation, for another term at the city’s helm.