Mayor Adams (of NYC) Wants to Force E-Bikes and Scooters to Slow Down.

By Stefanos Chen

Mayor Eric Adams has escalated a crackdown on electric bicycles and scooters by proposing a speed limit of 15 miles per hour for the increasingly popular vehicles that is significantly slower than the requirement for cars.

Mr. Adams made the announcement late Wednesday minutes before the first televised mayoral debate, which he did not participate in because he is running as an independent. A crowded field of Democratic candidates discussed their plans to regulate the growing app-based delivery industry, which makes wide use of e-bikes.

“I have heard, over and over again, from New Yorkers about how their safety — and the safety of their children — has been put at risk due to speeding e-bikes and e-scooters,” Mr. Adams said in a statement. The typical speed limit for all vehicles on local streets is currently 25 miles per hour.

Motor-assisted bicycles and electric scooters have multiplied across the streets of New York City as the trend of micro-mobility — the use of small, personal and powered vehicles — has taken root in many urban centers nationwide. But the vehicles have stirred public safety concerns even as cars remain involved in the vast majority of serious traffic crashes.

In response, the New York Police Department last month began an enforcement push that calls for issuing cyclists criminal summons, instead of tickets, for minor traffic offenses, like running a red light. But some transportation advocates have argued that it would lead to bike riders being more harshly punished than motorists for some offenses.

Now, critics of Mr. Adams’s latest proposal have said that an added restriction on the speed of e-bikes, when cars and other vehicles are allowed to drive at faster speeds, could actually make roads less safe for cyclists and pedestrians, and entrap cyclists with summonses. The speed limit proposal was first reported by the Daily News.

Most e-bikes do not have speedometers, and on streets without dedicated bike lanes, the safer practice is to match the speed of other vehicles, said Sara Lind, the co-executive director of Open Plans, a safe streets advocacy group.

“You’re creating chaos in how you can enforce this,” Ms. Lind said. “Is a cop literally going to stand in the bike lane with a radar gun?”

Whether Mr. Adams can enact the new speed limit without cooperation from the City Council is unclear.

Allison Maser, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office, said the city’s Transportation Department has the authority to make the speed-limit change, and it could become law in about a month and a half, after the agency considers public comments.

Typically, the City Council would pass laws to regulate e-bikes, but it has yet to put forward a bill with the mayor’s recommendations, which also includes stricter rules for food delivery apps.

A spokeswoman for Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker who is also running for mayor, said that Mr. Adams “has repeatedly failed to demonstrate an understanding of the city’s lawmaking process, which has made him ineffective.”

At the Democratic mayoral debate, the candidates largely agreed that e-bikes need to be better regulated, with most pointing to stricter rules for delivery times at companies like Uber Eats and DoorDash as having added an incentive to travel at unsafe speeds.

Andrew M. Cuomo, the former governor who is leading in the polls for mayor, said he would support reducing e-bike speeds, as well as creating a licensing system to further regulate the delivery industry.

But Zohran Mamdani, the state assemblyman who is second in the polls, accused Mr. Cuomo of being influenced by delivery companies, including DoorDash, which donated $1 million to a super PAC that supports Mr. Cuomo.

(Mr. Cuomo parried, saying he represents only the interests of New York, regardless of his funders.)

Uber declined to comment about the speed proposal.

A spokesman for DoorDash declined to comment specifically on proposals to further regulate the industry, but denied claims that the company encourages riders to break traffic laws.

Patrick Knoth, the general manager for Citi Bike, the bike-sharing program that has a contract with the city, said the company would install speedometers on their e-bikes if the rule is enforced. So far this year, about 70 percent of Citi Bike rides have been on e-bikes, the company said.

The vehicles have become popular for a range of uses, but especially for commercial purposes. Since 2019, the number of delivery workers on e-bikes and other vehicles has roughly doubled to 60,000.

In 2023, 30 bike riders, most of whom were on e-bikes, were killed in traffic accidents, marking the deadliest year for cyclists since 1999. But a majority of the accidents involved crashes with cars.

Some transit groups have questioned an enforcement policy that focuses on e-bikes, when larger vehicles have the capacity for much more damage.

There were 121 pedestrian fatalities in New York City in 2024, up 21 percent from the previous year, according to data analyzed by Transportation Alternatives, a mass transit advocacy group. Only one of those pedestrians was struck by an e-bike.

A large share of e-bike riders are immigrant workers, and the criminalization of minor traffic offenses has many concerned with the threat of deportation, said Ligia Guallpa, the executive director of the Workers Justice Project, a group that represents the workers.

“It pretty much opens up a ticketing-deportation pipeline that will do the dirty work for President Trump,” Ms. Guallpa said.

Critics of Mr. Adams have said that, after the Trump administration dismissed corruption charges against him, he has been more amenable to the president’s views on the city, including a preference for cars over mass transit and bikes, and his deportation policies. The mayor has denied that he is beholden to the president.

Janet Schroeder, the director of the NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance, which wants all electronic vehicles to bear license plates, said she welcomed “a reasonable speed limit.”

“The person on the bike is not going to change their behavior unless there are consequences,” she said, but added that she opposes criminal summonses for minor traffic violations.

Ms. Maser, the spokeswoman for City Hall, said the goal of the regulations was to make streets safer, while considering the pressures that delivery drivers face to complete jobs quickly. She declined to say whether the speed violations would lead to more criminal summonses for riders, and deferred the question to the Police Department, which did not immediately respond.

But the city’s approach has unfairly targeted deliveristas, a name for the largely Latino work force that, during the coronavirus pandemic, was regarded as essential, and even heroic, Ms. Guallpa said.

“Deliveristas deserve more respect for their service to the city,” she said.

Stefanos Chen is a Times reporter covering New York City’s transit system.