Wednesday’s Headlines: Super Bowl Wednesday Edition
Streetsblog has taken to calling high-profile legislative hearings “super bowls” because of the amount of media attention they draw, and today is a big one — Super Bowl Wednesday, when the City Council under Speaker Julie Menin and Majority Leader and Transportation Committee Chair Shaun Abreu will consider a laundry list of bills to regulate e-bike riding in the city.
Testifying for the Mamdani administration will be Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Sam Levine. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch will be absent, however — continuing her pattern of deferring crucial “Vision Zero” responsibility to subordinates.
Menin already took e-bike licensing off the table — at least at the city level. Her transportation chair, meanwhile, has focused his attention on regulating the industries most responsible for the proliferation of e-bikes on city streets. Abreu previewed his goals for the hearing in an op-ed we published on Tuesday.
Menin may have different objectives. She’s previously criticized the Mamdani administration for abandoning a place to implement age verification technology for Citi Bike riders. The speaker will hold her own press conference inside City Hall as advocates in favor and against e-bikes rally outside. Don’t be surprised if she uses her platform to revive the age verification issue.
As Charles Komanoff noted last week in Vital City, just one of the more than 20 bills on the agenda for Tuesday has majority support to pass — Council Member Crystal Hudson’s proposal to ban the sale of Class 3 e-bikes in New York City, backed by Transportation Alternatives. But there’s other good ideas on the table as well, which TransAlt spokesman Charlie Baker previewed in video below.
Baker called on supporters of legal e-bikes to show up and testify in favor of focusing government’s efforts on high-speed illegal e-motos. But none of the bills can work without enforcement, which is why it’s a shame Commissioner Tisch has once again excused herself from the public conversation about safe streets. In her place will be NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters Michael Gerber and NYPD Chief of Transportation Olufunmilola Obe.
In other news:
- New York needs new bike lane designs for the e-micromobility era. (BK Reader)
- The city’s deal to make crucial air quality upgrades to the Hunts Point Produce Market has reportedly fallen apart. (Gothamist)
- Disabled transit riders and accessibility advocates are calling on the MTA to allow paratransit riders more time to pre-book trips. (amNY)
- NYPD failed to record 10,000 stop-and-frisk incidents last year. (amNY)
- Mayor Mamdani gave himself veto power over the NYPD’s deployment of its controversial Strategic Response Group, but doesn’t appear eager to use it. (Politico)
- The Upper East Side is about to get a lot more housing, whether it wants it or not. (Gothamist)
- ICYMI: Officials celebrated the start of tunnel boring through the New Jersey Palisades for the Gateway Tunnel. (The City Reporter)
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