Legal E-Bikes Won't Be Allowed In NYC Bike Lanes, De Blasio Says

NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to keep the fastest electric bicycles out of New York City's bike lanes now that they're one signature away from being legalized.

"They gave the power to localities to figure out what would work and I can tell you one thing: we are not going to see folks going 25 miles an hour in bike lanes, intermixed with bicyclists," the Democratic mayor said Friday in his weekly WNYC interview. "That's dangerous."

Both houses of the state Legislature passed a bill this week that would legalize e-bikes with top speeds of 25 MPH. The measure, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo supports, was a response to the NYPD's crackdown on the throttle-powered bikes popular with delivery workers, which don't require the rider to pedal.

WNYC host Brian Lehrer asked de Blasio whether people on e-bikes should be forced to ride in the streets instead of bike lanes because the vehicles can reach the city's speed limit for cars. While he didn't take a formal stance on the matter, the mayor called it a "real interesting question" and said the city would work to address safety concerns that e-bikes pose.

"We’ve got to create a situation that creates enough order and security for everyone, and particularly for our seniors, and pedestrians have to be protected first," de Blasio said. "So that’s what we’re going to figure out: How to do this legally, how to do this appropriately, how to let people make their livelihood, for sure. But the speeds have to be carefully approached."

The mayor suggested that the city could somehow limit the "speed capacity" of electric bikes. He noted that pedal-assist bikes, which give riders a motorized boost when they pedal, are generally slower than throttle-powered models.

The legalization bill, which the state Assembly passed Thursday, sets a top speed of 20 MPH for pedal-assist bikes. It would also keep the fastest throttle-powered bikes illegal outside of New York City and give local governments the ability to further regulate the vehicles.

The bill would not make e-bikes officially legal until 180 days, or about six months, after Cuomo signs it. That's also when electric scooters would become legal outside New York City; they'd be legal in the city after nine months.

De Blasio said many senior citizens have raised concerns about bikes of different speeds threatening them when they cross the street. But cars and trucks caused thousands of injuries last year while e-bikes caused only a handful, said Joe Cutrufo, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives.

Cutrufo said he's capable of pedaling a regular bike just as fast as an e-bike, but all kinds of cyclists are equally vulnerable to traffic regardless of their speed.

"We shouldn’t be separating transportation modes based on speed so much as we should be separating them based on relative vulnerability," Cutrufo said.