“It is time to update our laws”: City Council introduces bill to legalize e-bikes, e-scooters

The package of bills would help bring electric scooters and bikes to NYC streets

Before a bill to legalize e-scooters and throttle e-bikes in New York was introduced in the City Council on Wednesday, members of that governing body, along with bike delivery advocates and representatives of electric scooter start-ups, held a press conference during which they promised New Yorkers expanded transportation options and more just enforcement for delivery workers.

"It is time to update our laws," City Council Transportation Committee chair Ydanis Rodriguez said during opening remarks at the presser. Finally legalizing the use of e-scooters and e-bikes, Rodriguez said, would both reduce the city's carbon footprint and "expand transportation in neighborhoods with transit deserts."

Council Member Rafael Espinal also noted that when it comes to micromobility, New York is behind other cities. Espinal criticized the city's current tactic of seizing e-bikes from their riders, saying "what we've seen in the past four years is hundreds, if not thousands of deliverymen targeted by the NYPD just for doing their job and using a mode of transportation that helped them do their job in an efficient manner."

City Council Member Margaret Chin also blasted the city's attitude towards delivery riders using e-bikes, thanking organizations like Transportation Alternatives, Make the Road New York, and the Deliver Justice Coalition for working to make e-bikes legal. "We could not be here today without your perseverance to change a prevailing misguided narrative about immigrant workers who are punished fined and harassed every day for simply trying to put food on the table and provide for their families," Chin said.

Espinal's three bills would establish a pilot program for the city to introduce e-scooters, establish a program for the city to convert throttle e-bikes to pedal assist for people making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, and would also repeal existing regulations barring the use of e-bikes that didn't exceed 20 miles per hour in speed even if said bikes use a throttle system. Council Member Fernando Cabrera's bill would remove restrictions against the use of e-scooters that move at speeds up to 15 miles per hour. Rodriguez said he would hold hearings on the bills as soon as possible.

The press conference also featured multiple questions about the relative safety of e-bikes and e-scooters, a viewpoint that echoes Mayor Bill de Blasio's perception that e-bikes are especially dangerous because of their speed (the bikes under Espinal's legislation would be limited to 20 miles per hour, which is lower than the city's speed limit). Paul Steely White, the former Transportation Alternatives head who's now the director of safety and advocacy at Bird, noted the difference between the relative safety of e-bikes and their reputation as nuisances.

"A lot of the concern about safety is really concern about nuisance," White told Curbed after the press conference. "No one likes being buzzed by an e-bike or a scooter on the sidewalk; it can startle people. But that's a very different thing than a safety crisis. A safety crisis is hundreds of people being killed by motor vehicles every year." White predicted that the legitimization of e-scooters and e-bikes would work similarly to the introduction of Citi Bike, which helped shift the perception of cycling as more of a legitimate transportation option in New York.

Asked by Curbed if the council would commit to an aggressive expansion of bike infrastructure, in order to make room for e-scooters and keep people off the sidewalk, Rodriguez praised the DOT's goal of adding 25 miles of protected bike lanes per year, but also said he'd like the see the city double that goal in next year's budget. And Cabrera suggested that the presence of e-scooter and e-bikes will lead to a demand for more places to safely ride them.

"Whenever you have a new type of vehicle, the culture of transportation will demand the infrastructure will catch up with it," Cabrera said. "It's what we've done with cars and other vehicles in the city, and we expect nothing less than that."

The fate of the bills after their hearings is, of course unknown, but it appears the City Council may have to fight the mayor on the bills. While City Council Speaker Corey Johnson has signaled his support, the mayor has continued to suggest that he personally doesn't see the purpose of e-bikes, and suggested that e-scooters can't work on the city's broken streets (despite previous scooter exhibitions and the fact that people use them here already).