NYC’s E-Bike Crackdown Still Bad for Everyone

It’s not just affecting delivery people… it could harm the city’s transportation future.

While biking home the other night, I passed a police van parked on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 20th Street. The van’s rear doors were open, and the officers inside were unloading confiscated electric bikes. The bikes were dinged and scuffed, their frames wrapped in black electrical tape; they almost certainly belonged to the delivery-people who pedal around the city at all hours, transporting everything from food to laundry.

I only had a brief glance at the officers, though, because my own electric bike was carrying me at a fair rate of speed down the street. Several months ago, Citi Bike, the bike-sharing system that I often rely on to commute, introduced “pedal assist” bikes, which use an electric motor to power one’s pedaling. These bikes are quite fast, shaving as much as 25 percent off my average commute time; if the lights are with me, and I’m pedaling hard, I can travel between lower Manhattan and Queens in just over 30 minutes.

These “pedal assist” bikes are also legal, whereas the throttle-activated electric bicycles preferred by delivery people are not. The NYPD will not only confiscate the latter, but sometimes charge the owner with misdemeanor reckless…