Council Member Abreu: Wednesday’s E-Bike Hearing Is About Upgrading Our Approach to Micromobility

This spring, two men died in a horrific head-on collision in the bike lane of the Queensboro Bridge. One was riding an illegal electric scooter capable of reaching over 50 miles per hour and careened into a cyclist traveling in the opposite direction. A few weeks later, a teenager was killed on an illegal e-moto on Centre Street, steps from City Hall. E-bike crashes have increased 31.7 percent compared to last year. Between 2019 and July 2026, 133 people have died in e-bike and e-moto crashes, with the riders of these devices making up virtually all of those killed.

Add to this sidewalk-riding, rule-flouting and near-misses, and it is clear we do not have a functioning or effective micromobility policy framework in New York City.

Policy almost never moves at the pace of industry, which means that new technologies often push boundaries and test the public’s initial goodwill and patience. E-bikes, likewise, are objectively remarkable as a concept and technological achievement, yet seem to constantly make new enemies. The city is growing, the subway is hot and crowded, cars are expensive, and we’re barely removed from a pandemic that required physical distancing. By all rights, e-bikes should be among the most popular and beloved inventions of the last decade.

Yet when e-bikes come up in conversation, it is never to say, “I can’t believe that sandwich was still hot when it got here,” but more, “That bike crash video was terrifying” or, “That jerk nearly knocked me over.”

It’s time for policy to catch up. We need a fair playing ground that protects riders and pedestrians and disincentivizes competitors from jeopardizing safety to gain a marketing edge. If we pull that off, New Yorkers will finally be able to appreciate the benefits of what are truly incredible devices without feeling like they’re the collateral in a science experiment.

Tomorrow, Sept. 30, the City Council will hear a suite of bills related to micromobility, carefully constructed to comprehensively address current challenges. The package takes a two-pronged approach. 

First, we aim to stop dangerous, illegal devices from roaming our streets. The problem is not the commuter or delivery worker riding responsibly at the 15-mph speed limit, but rather an explosion of overpowered illegal e-motos and e-scooters that can travel at automobile speeds while masquerading as e-bikes.

So much of the danger starts at the point of sale, where these devices are misleadingly advertised as street-legal e-bikes. Some retailers are taking advantage of buyers who may not know the device they are purchasing must be registered with the state Department of Motor Vehicles or is just outright illegal to ride in New York City.

Two bills aim to eliminate these dangerous devices by cutting them off at the point of sale:

• Intro 988 would prohibit falsely advertising high-powered devices like limited motorcycles, which must be registered with the DMV, as an e-bike or e-scooter. Too often, consumers mistakenly buy a device they think is an e-bike but is too fast and powerful to classify as one. If a vehicle requires DMV registration, that must be clear at the point of sale.
• Intro 95 takes a similar approach to mopeds specifically, requiring retailers to distribute information about the licensing, registration and insurance rules for these faster vehicles that are increasingly mistaken for e-bikes.

The legislative package also seeks to ban Class III e-bikes. This set of e-bikes can reach speeds of up to 25 mph and New York City is the only municipality in New York state where they are permitted. When e-bikes were legalized in 2020, permitting Class III e-bikes made sense, as they were widely used by delivery workers. However, the past six years have raised serious questions as to why we allow the fastest e-bikes to operate on our most complex and crowded streets in our densest city. On our local streets, 20 is plenty.

How exactly we phase out these fast, dangerous devices matters — and we must ensure delivery workers do not lose their livelihoods and that commuters can still get to work.

To accelerate the fair removal of Class III e-bikes and devices that pretend to be legal, we should establish a trade-in rebate program. This will help delivery workers make the transition to safer devices, help consumers who unknowingly bought a device that they cannot legally ride, and increase fleet turnover to micromobility that run at manageable speeds. 

Of course, enforcement of our laws will be necessary, but it can be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to visually distinguish a Class II e-bike from an illegal e-moto, or an e-scooter that goes 20 mph from one that tops 50 mph.

Cycling-friendly locales like London and the Netherlands rely on dynamometers — devices about the size of a treadmill that can measure the maximum speed and power of an e-bike or e-moto — to determine whether a micromobility device is street-legal. Deploying these across our city will take the guesswork out of enforcement, preventing undue confiscation and helping get the fast and dangerous vehicles off our streets. 

No-fault trade-in events that use dynamometers and distribute rebates will give people the chance to switch to a new device with knowledge and financial support. But trade-ins will not work on their own, and unfortunately, there will be some riders who refuse to change their device. For these cases, dynamometers will help accurately identify the dangerous and illegal devices that need to be removed from our streets. 

A second track of legislation aims to rein in the app-based delivery companies and make sure they are incentivizing safe riding. To understand why a delivery rider might blow through a red light, we must look at the pressure placed on them to complete as many algorithmically-determined deliveries as quickly as possible. Rather than play whack-a-mole and directly regulate the notoriously slippery and hard to define algorithms used by companies, the Council is advancing interlocking bills that put the onus for safe riding on the companies who dictate how fast and far delivery workers must travel.

The keystone bill of this set would require app-based delivery companies to obtain a business license from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, giving the city a true enforcement lever over companies that currently operate with little oversight. To maintain their licenses, delivery companies would have to hand over trip-level data, including delivery deadlines, routes and vehicle types used.

The Safe Delivery Times Act will provide the city with the historical records necessary to study whether the apps are incentivizing dangerous riding through quotas and time pressures. Armed with this information, the city will be able to write enforceable rules that put responsibility on the corporations whose algorithms determine working conditions, not just the workers who are racing to keep up. This data can also be used to better understand where commercial delivery is taking place and more precisely target infrastructure planning like bike lanes and charging stations.

As part of business licensing, these companies will also be required to carry liability insurance covering crashes involving delivery workers completing trips on their behalf. This will not only provide protection and compensation to other road users in the event of a crash, but also will help shift the burden for safe riding onto the companies who are ultimately financially liable for the type of riding they incentivize. Protecting their bottom lines will also mean protecting delivery workers and other road users. 

Although incredibly important, getting e-bikes right is not a silver bullet to solving all of our transportation problems. Cars and trucks cause the vast majority of injuries and fatalities on our streets, and e-bikes are just one aspect of the wider transit ecosystem. From low-traffic neighborhoods, to stopping super speeders, to improving Vision Zero, the Council is looking at the full range of issues in the coming months across multiple hearings. 

And one final point, because it is easily lost in moments of grief, regulatory confusion and backlash: Over two decades, New York has built one of the great micromobility success stories in the country. E-bikes, bikeshare, and good old-fashioned bicycles have cut emissions, reduced congestion, and given New Yorkers an affordable way to move.

That progress is worth protecting and is the direct result of infrastructure that facilitates safe riding. In tandem with this e-bikes package, we must continue to build the types of streets that make biking, walking, and riding real options. 

Security and safety for all road users and a thriving micromobility future are not in tension. When done right, they are the same project.