Julie Menin is Weighing At Least 17 E-Bike and E-Moto Bills — Here’s What We Know

City Council Speaker Julie Menin is throwing the book at the “e-bike” debate and considering no less than 17 bills related to e-micromobility regulation at a marquee hearing scheduled for late September.

At a press conference on Tuesday announcing the new bills, Menin claimed that her “comprehensive legislative review” was “not about blaming any one party,” but none of the bills directly address reckless car and truck drivers, who cause the majority of e-bike-involved crashes and kill or injure thousands of New Yorkers each year.

Menin’s office has said all 17 bills are on the table, and that the hearing’s goal is to “identify effective legislative solutions” from among them. So far, Menin and her office have explicitly identified just 10 existing bills, while teasing another six.

The Sept. 30 hearing is a long way’s away, and Menin has suggested the number of bills could still grow.

For now, here’s a list of the e-bike and e-moto bills on Speaker Menin and her Council colleagues have prepared for their proverbial legislative table:

Bills targeting the delivery app industry

Intro 950, sponsored by Council Member Lynn Schulman (D-Forest Hills), requires delivery services to get a business license from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.

Intro 110, from Council Member Selvena Brooks-Powers, which expands the city’s commercial bike safety laws by requiring businesses to keep records of their delivery workers and provide them with safety equipment, information and identification.

A bill to ban class 3 e-bikes

Intro 244, sponsored by Council Member Crystal Hudson (D-Crown Heights), prohibits the sale and rental of class 3 e-bikes — which can go up to 25 miles per hour and sometimes have a throttle. Hudson first introduced this bill last year with the support of 24 co-sponsors and the biking and walking advocacy group Transportation Alternatives.

Bills mandating data collection and research

Also sponsored by Brooks-Powers, Intro 124 would establish a task force to investigate how to make street designs and infrastructure safer for all motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. Brooks-Powers (D-Laurelton) proposed several task forces and new reporting requirement during her time chairing the Council Transportation Committee under former Speaker Adrienne Adams — while opposing bike lanes in her own district.

A third bill sponsored by Brooks-Powers, Intro 787, would require the NYPD to publicly report where it conducted “targeted” traffic enforcement, including information regarding where targets were located and specific instances of e-scooter or e-bike related enforcement.

Another bill, Intro 389, introduced by Lincoln Restler (D-Boerum Hill), requires all third-party food delivery services to make sure that the mopeds used by workers are properly registered with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Sponsored by Council Member Gale Brewer (D-Upper West Side), Intro 78, would require third-party apps to disclose driver data, including ID numbers and delivery time and location. “That information will help the city identify where infrastructure investments are needed, where they’re needed most,” said Brewer.

A bill requiring delivery worker moped education

Intro 95, also from Brewer, calls for the distribution of materials detailing the proper operation of mopeds through a coordinated effort between DCWP and the Department of Transportation. It would require moped sellers to provide these materials upon the sale of a moped.

Resolutions calling for state action

Menin also touted two resolutions from Brewer and one more on the way: The first, Resolution 44, calls on the State Legislature to increase the penalty for e-scooter drivers who leave the scene of a crash without reporting it and create a penalty for e-bikers who do the same.

The second, Resolution 43, calls on the state to pass a registration program for commercial e-bike delivery vehicles.

Crucially, Brewer will also introduce a resolution calling on the state to pass a registration and licensing program for all e-bike riders, a Council spokesman said on Tuesday. (Mayor Mamdani reiterated his opposition to that idea on Wednesday.)

New bills from Council Transportation Chair

Council Member Shaun Abreu (D-Washington Heights) introduced a new swath of bills on Aug. 13 that will be part of the mega-hearing in September.

Intro 0985, would force the city to establish program for New Yorkers who own Class 3 e-bikes or illegal e-motos that don’t fit into the three class system to trade their fast bikes for lower-speed Class 1 or Class 2 e-bikes. Running the program would fall to the already overworked Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and would mandate one trade-in event per community district each calendar year.

Abreu also wants the city to use “dynamometers” to test the motor wattage and top speed of bikes to enforce the city’s existing regulations. Intro 0986 would require the NYPD to establish a program to use the devices in collaboration with DOT.

Intro 0988 would target false advertising. Abreu wants to specifically prohibit companies from advertising e-motos as e-bikes.

Lastly, Abreu introduced a bill, Intro 0989, which would require Lyft, which operates Citi Bike, to report safety incidents involving the bike share’s bicycles and electric bicycles.

A bill that blames the victims

Incoming Council Member Virginia Maloney also introduced a bill on Aug. 13 that will be discussed at the hearing. In a press release, Maloney brands Intro 1004 as an e-bike safety bill, but it would merely have DOT to put signs up reminding pedestrians to look up.

Several more have been teased, including:

• “additional insurance requirements for third-party delivery applications”
• “expanded enforcement”
• and “infrastructure changes to slow high-speed rolling”

We will continue to update this story as Menin and the Council publish more of the (allegedly) 17 bills and counting.

With Sophia Lebowitz.