I’d like to see them do something about all the idiots on Citi bikes that think they can roll through crosswalks, go the wrong way, etc.

For those of us ignorant of the controversy....what's the central issue with e-bikes?

I live in rural Texas, so I really don't keep up with this kind of thing. My immediate reaction was, "what's the big deal?"

Hmm, I guess it's a city/urban thing. E-bikes would be glorious for rural areas. Basically, just extra electric power behind the bikes turn your average commuter into a Peter Sagan with all the speed and no bike handling skills. I know cities in Europe are handling this movement much better and I believe Netherlands restricts all manufacturers to a speed limit on the bikes sold and used on the streets but they also have separate lanes for cyclists from pedestrians.

The heart of the issue I think is really mixing with pedestrians and that many of these e-bikers are quite reckless. The specific article is addressing delivery workers who are under pressure to deliver as fast as possible and thus take risks not only to the safety of pedestrians but sadly, to their own lives too as cycling in NYC is still quite unsafe.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

I was running in Central Park today and was passed by a small group of roadies (5-6 riders). Then a dude on a E-bike, catches and proceeds to drop the group. It was quite the visual.

But hadukla post nailed it. It's a safety thing.

Hah - we have a small climb next to a highway entry ramp here that's near the end of my ride that I try and take hard due to the exiting cars, and I've encountered several e-bikes doing that climb as well.

I'm no Lionel Sanders watt monster, but it is always satisfying to go 300+ watts and then gain like crazy on the ebikes, many of which are throttled at 250-300 watts. The rider usually looks back in disbelief when you catch them!

Based on how many E-bike you see on the streets of NY, you'd never know they were illegal. The bikes they use aren't like the specialized ones that increase your power only when pedaling. It's unsettling to ride over the queensboro bridge and get passed by a delivery guy going 20mph while hes not even pedaling. Its almost like a gas powered scooter sometimes.

I see 2 issues...
- There are too many bikes on the road (especially during commuting hours) to have electric scooters and Ebikes passing you in the bike lane while taxis park and/or cut through the lane without even looking.
- E bikes are an issue on the roads because drivers are more likely to under estimate their speed and get into an accident. Or at least that's my analysis

my understanding based on previous articles I've read is that they're cracking down on e-bikes that don't require you to pedal. i don't think they are purposefully cracking down on power-assist type e-bikes. I wouldn't doubt that those are being accidentally caught in the net though.

If you put a motor on bicycle it is motorcycle. No one would argue that if you put pedals on Kawasaki Ninja it becomes a bicycle.
E-bikes should be allowed and regulated a motorcycles. They should not be allowed in the bike lanes and they really don't belong on sidewalks (or the Tour de France).
I live and ride on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and have been buzzed by e-bikes going well over 30MPH.
Let e-bikes mix it up with the taxis and trucks on the streets.

i commute to work via citi bike from manhattan to queens. i was pleased to read this article, overall.

i encounter the following situation every day on my ride home - i am on the citi bike, grinding that heavy bike on the long steady climb up the queensboro bridge, in a line of other riders doing the same. moving maybe 6 to 7ish mph. there are cyclists coming in the opposite direction, zooming down the bridge. one half of the path area is dedicated for pedestrians (or supposed to be), and is very crowded with foot traffic in both directions. there is VERY LITTLE free real estate on the path. from behind, out of nowhere, zoom e-bikes, going up the climb, these things go 25+mph. no pedaling needed, they're essentially silent motorcycles. they come within inches of clipping other cyclists and cause pedestrians to jump out of the way, zooming and weaving on both the bike and pedestrian sides of the path, with very little regard for anyone's safety. I don't ride in nyc except for my commute, so can only comment on this situation.

cycling in NYC, i understand and tolerate certain levels of aggressive and assertive riding/driving behavior, but the e-bikes (or should i say their operators) take it to the extreme and they really do frighten (and endanger) me on a regular basis.

personally, i have nothing against e-bikes as a machine, but i do against unsafe operation of them which endangers the general public. the guy/gal who owns a ferrari doesn't drive 100 mph down 5th ave weaving in and out of traffic (even though the car is capable of it). ferraris are legal, but we have speed limits and traffic laws which are regularly enforced (and enforceABLE enough to deter this behavior) to protect public safety. personally i'd like to see us get to the same place with e-bikes, because as we've seen with the bike industry generally, e-bikes are popular and have a place in the cycling community for a variety of reasons.

but, they can cause real safety problems due to the behavior of the operator.

only you can still drive a kawasaki even if you do put pedals on it. power-assist bikes will not go anywhere without pedaling and the legal ones are capped at a certain speed (27mph or so i believe) and do require a good amount of pedaling effort to reach that speed. the reason i wouldn't want to completely shut out these kinds of bikes is that it could be a positive move towards getting more ordinary people commuting with bike

Ok, makes sense. I guess what confused me was the statement in the article:

"While electric bikes are legal to own in the city, e-bike users are subject to fines when they're used on city streets."

Which made me think..."Like a motorcycle/moped/scooter/any other motor-vehicle". But, it sounds like they are being operated like bicycles, in bike lanes, sidewalks, etc. Granted I've NEVER been to NYC...so, I'm just envisioning.

Anyway the scenarios above make sense for why they are a safety hazard.

A speed limiter sounds like AN idea...but, I'm sure people would just find ways to disable them...so, still probably only limited effectiveness.

I think the bottom line is that people need to ride safely. Whether you have a motor in your bike or not. They should make laws that is conducive to such safety, such as speed limits, and rules for passing other bikes and pedestrians when in a bike lane, bike path, or sidewalk. Really no different than how there are laws on cars that have specific speed limits depending on the area or type of road your on, or passing laws depending on how the lane or road is striped.

To me, it doesn't make sense to restrict the use of an e-bike if the user is operating it in a safe manner given the situation. And I also believe it doesn't make sense for it to be okay that a non motorized cyclist can technically ride 35 mph on a path that is shared with pedestrians just because they have really good fitness. The type of bike shouldn't be what is limited or restricted. It's the manner in which you use said bike that needs to be taken into account.

When I used to commute to work via a multi use path, I simply rode with courtesy. Always stayed to the right side of the path and gave ample room to other pedestrians or cyclists if I needed to pass. Even if it meant riding off the path and onto the dirt or grass. I almost never used my bell, or yelled at anyone "on your left." If need be, I braked and slowed down, sometimes even putting my foot down to safely get around people who were also using the path if there wasn't a way to safely pass while going at my cruising speed. I think the only time I ever used my bell or yelled out is if there was someone on the path that was completely unpredictable. Such as someone with a dog on a 10 foot leash that didn't see me, or someone who was walking across the path that looked like they might double back without looking.

During the 3 or so years that I took this route, I never came close to crashing into another user of the path. Nor did I have anyone yell at me for riding like an asshole. Not to say that I haven't seen my fair share of other cyclists who have ridden dangerously on that path...but most of them were not on e-bikes.

I ride an e-bike daily. It has allowed me to bike commute nearly 100% of the time, instead of driving a gasoline powered multi-thousand pound killing machine. I could not bike commute on a regular bike daily because of the time savings (e-bike = 25 minutes, regular bike = 40-45 minutes). This is suburbia however, where most of it is on bike lanes with no traffic, or on roads sharing with cars.

I am curious though, how would using CARS instead of e-bikes improve pedestrian safety or reduce traffic congestion in a place like NYC? (The article suggested that DeBlasio is planning to encourage CAR delivery instead of e-bike).

The fundamental problem is the lack of safe/adequate infrastructure for all users. How much space do NYC streets dedicate to cars vs. bikes vs. pedestrians? Look at that carefully, and you will find that the problem is not the bike or the e-bike, but the cars.

NYC could easily mandate that e-bike throttle and pedal assist top speeds be limited to a reasonable mph.

But the real solution is to get rid of cars in the city and give more space to transit and bike/ped.

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

A 750 watt (1 hp) motor and a top assisted speed (with 170 lb rider, on a flat, paved surface) of 20 mph is generally considered the upper threshold for a "low speed, electric bicycle." That's the threshold the federal government uses when deciding what safety regulations a vehicle must comply with ("bicycle" or "moped/motor scooter/motorcycle").

There's a real hodge-podge of laws state to state, however, when it comes to actually operating such vehicles. Many states have not enacted any regulations for e-bikes, and owners/riders are left guessing as to their legality. Of the states that have considered e-bikes specifically, many allow persons over 16 years old to ride a vehicle that meets federal LSEB thresholds (or something similar) without any licensing requirements, and regulate their use the same as bicycles. Others regulate them the same as mopeds. The state of NY is an outlier in that it outright bans e-bikes on public thoroughfares.

There are provisions in the NY state code for three classes of Limited Use Motorcycles. A bike that met the "LSEB" definitions would seem to fit New York's definition of a class C Limited Use Motorcycle. But a manufacturer has to apply to the state for certification. I presume either none of the e-bike manufacturers have applied, or that the certified bikes are disregarded by the delivery services in favor of cheaper, non-certified models.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

This is one of those silly things I look at and just shake my head. Somehow, an entire continent of e-bike users (Europe) just don't have this issue. And heck, the e-bikes in Europe aren't generally capped like they are in the states.

It's funny in that I'm often bewildered when tourists come here to Europe on vacation and love certain things like more walkability or better cycling lanes, yet the second the plane lanes back in America, it's "cars...cars...cars". What happens on that 8 hour flight back?

Sigh.

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My tiny little slice of the internets: dcrainmaker.com

Is there any actual evidence of this? I live in New York City, and car drivers kill someone every few days. Bikes, every five years or so. Ebikes none so far, but presumably eventually after many years.

And I'm not just talking about death, but that's a decent surrogate for serious injuries.

Is there any evidence of ebikes being a serious problem?

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http://www.jt10000.com/

General speed limits for shared bike paths on state land: 15 mph.


I think that the speed these are legally allowed to go is too high to share space with peds (comparable to a -50cc- moped).

Europe:

Pedelec: Without insurance/registration: 18mph max electric speed
E-bike: With insurance/registration/helmet: 30mph max (can only use dedicated bike paths if signage explicitly allows to do so).

While you are allowed to attach (or hang) pretty much everything you desire to your Pedelec, you can not do the same to your e-bike (similar to moped regs.).

Oh Yeah! Land of the Free!

You are misinformed about them not being 'capped' and regulated in most European countries. See my other post.

I dont think analyzing it only by fatalities caused or other serious injury surrogates makes any sense. The fact that it might not kill or come close to killing doesn't make it exempt from being a problem worth addressing.

No, according to this editorial.

http://www.nydailynews.com/...rs-article-1.3071140

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

NYPD are not spending sufficient time/resource protecting us from a known, frequent killer and injuring of pedestrians and cyclists. Drivers here injure about 1,000 people a month and kill 10 or more each month.


https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/08/01/nyc-drivers-injured-1324-pedestrians-and-cyclists-in-june-and-killed-nine/


Sure, if they see a particularly bad action by an ebike rider, then ticket. But launching a crackdown (that is, special focus of attention and resources) on ebikes when they can't seem to stop something that is proven dangerous is a waste of resources and not the most effective way to make us safer.


And I'd hope there were other ways to address it - like making the streets safer and more convenient for bikes/ebikes, so fewer ebikes riders feel it's useful to ride on sidewalks, etc. Instead the mayor literally suggested more restaurants deliver by cars. Which is insane.

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http://www.jt10000.com/

Really funny to watch how Legislation/Government is taking it's sweet time and leaves it up to Servants to figure it out and take the blame.

People then blame the Servants, who are actually The People.

Hilarious and SAD.

Would be time to get a good legislation...
Hint: Europe has figured it out and done all the work.

But No, One must re-invent the wheel, or wait until the patents for it run out (20 years arrears).