Mayor Mamdani's big announcement on Wednesday of the end of NYPD's policy of issuing criminal summonses to cyclists for moving violations that land car and truck drivers with a mere ticket is generating a lot of buzz — and a lot of misinformation.
Let's break down the myths and facts surrounding Mamdani's new policy.
Fact: NYPD will continue to hold cyclists accountable for traffic violations
The City Council's right-wing Common Sense Caucus assailed the mayor's "decision to stop issuing summonses [sic] to reckless e-bike drivers," which it claimed "removes all accountability for reckless cyclists."
We understand that the details of "ending criminal enforcement" can be confusing in a era where people rarely read past headlines or Instagram video stills, so let's clear this up: Last year, the NYPD began issuing criminal summonses for moving violations committed by cyclists on both electric and traditional bikes. Instead of paying their fines by mail, as drivers can, these cyclists had to show up in court to face the charges. If a two-wheeler failed to show up to court, cops could issue warrants for their arrest — a slippery slope that threatened to place the city's immigrant delivery workers in ICE's crosshairs.
Ironically, those criminal summonses rarely, if ever, actually ended with alleged violators paying their tickets: Streetsblog visited court in February and observed Criminal Court Judge John Walsh dismiss or issue mere warnings for most of the roughly three-dozen summonses he heard due to insufficient details or errors in the NYPD-issued tickets. We had seen the same thing last year, too.
Now cyclists who run red lights will face $190 fines — the same as drivers, even though e-bikes accounted for less than 0.04 percent of reported pedestrian injuries in the first three months of 2025, according to the NYPD.
Myth: Bicyclists can speed now
Former Mayor Eric Adams implemented a 15 mile-per-hour speed limit for e-bike riders — and that's still the law under the new mayor. Mamdani basically endorsed the policy (at least for Citi Bike) in front of a disappointed crowd of Hell Gate readers before last November's mayoral election.
Further, Mamdani opted to move ahead with his predecessor's 15-mph speed limit for Central Park, which applies to all bikes — not just e-bikes. (That speed limit is currently on hold after cycling clubs sued.)
Motorized two-wheeled vehicles that travel over 28-mph aren't actually e-bikes. As Streetsblog has reported, NYPD can confiscate those "e-motos" because they are illegal — and has done so, and continues to do so.
Yet the New York Post's front page crowed, "Zo stops charging speeding e-bike riders," but that's a lie. As noted above, Mamdani has not called off enforcement of traffic laws against cyclists — he's simply downgraded that enforcement to the same level as NYPD's civil enforcement of car and truck violations.
Fact: NYPD never showed any data to back up its crackdown
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch claimed last year that cyclists were ignoring regular traffic summonses because they neither have license plates nor driver's licenses that would compel compliance. But Tisch and NYPD never provided any data that showed cyclists weren't paying their civil violations. The repeated refusal to provide those stats defied Tisch's insistence that the crackdown was "data-driven."
In fact, the only data Tisch cited was "where we're seeing complaints" — the Adams administration based its enforcement on vibes, not facts.
Myth: The streets are a wild west because of e-bikes
The Post on Wednesday claimed that "data shows" crashes involving e-bikes or bikes dropped because of the crackdown from 15,000 in 2024 to 7,100 in 2025, but those figures appear to be simply made up. Crashmapper, which draws from NYPD's official datasets, show a much smaller drop in e-bike and bike crashes over that period — from 8,706 to 7,410. That decline started before Tisch's e-bike crackdown started the April, which raises the question of the policy's actual efficacy.
NYPD's data does reveal the overwhelming source of road carnage in the city: cars and trucks. Yet the same people hemming and hawing about the end of the criminal summons crackdown spent the first two days of this week whining about the city's enforcement of speed limits ... against cars.
Myth: The criminal summons policy targeted only e-bikes
NYPD touted its criminal summons policy as squarely aimed at e-bikes, but Streetsblog spoke to plenty of cyclists on non-electric bikes who got caught in the dragnet. One who we spoke to in May described coming off the Williamsburg Bridge when an NYPD officer stationed at foot of the bridge stepped into the bike path, forcing him to swerve around and come a stop.
"I lock eyes with him, and he decides to walk right into the bike lane while staring at me," the two-wheeler told Streetsblog's Kevin Duggan. "I slam on the brakes, I go around him which means I have to go into the opposite lane."
From Duggan's report:
The cop then charged him with disorderly conduct and failing to yield to a pedestrian — the pedestrian being the cop himself. When the cyclist protested that he was not being disorderly, the officer threatened to add on the arrestable offense of obstruction of governmental administration, because he claimed he had been trying to stop another e-biker and when the cyclist blocked him from doing so. The cyclist said he did not see any e-biker. Rather, the cop instigated the entire interaction on purpose, he said.
Fact: Elections have consequences
Opponents of bike infrastructure cast their lot last year with revanchist candidates, like disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who narrowly focused on e-bikes as the primary cause of chaos on city streets. They lost, decisively: Mamdani won majorities in both the primary and general elections on an agenda to end the criminal summonses and hold delivery apps accountable for pressuring their immigrant delivery workforce to make deliveries quickly and unsafely.
Polls consistently show New Yorkers want the city to use bike lanes, speed cameras and other tools to rein in dangerous driving. That's the population to which Mamdani catered, and that's what New Yorkers elected him to do.
The pro-car peanut gallery has the right to gripe, just as Mayor Mamdani has the right — and mandate — to see through his agenda.
