NYC must rein in e-bikes now and stop the carnage on our streets

New York’s City Council, to its members’ credit, now sees the need to control the e-bikes and other motorized devices that have made Gotham’s streets more dangerous and less pleasant.Its Wednesday hearing will launch debate on 23 bills and resolutions that could rein them in.But the sheer number of proposals indicates confusion.Councilmembers need to focus: E-bikes and scooters should offer no speed advantage over regular bikes.For decades, New York’s street-safety story was one of success.Traffic deaths tumbled from 701 in 1990 to 206 in 2018. But bicycles weren’t a big part of that story.

 In 2007, the year New York got its first protected bike lane, the average number of annual cyclist deaths, smoothed out over three years, was 21. By 2019, the average annual number of cyclist deaths remained .

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21. Yet the rate of deaths fell, as more people were cycling.

 That’s in part due to NYC’s policy choice to mitigate speed. In unrolling the Citibike bike-share program in 2013, Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s administration ensured that the blue bikes couldn’t move quickly: No Citibike rider died until 2017. Since 2020, however, New York has made speed a top priority.That year, the council legalized e-bikes that can go up to 25 mph. Deaths soared: an average of 25 cyclists annually over the past three years.

 This year so far, 19 people have died — despite Mayor Eric Adams’ move to limit bike speed to 15 mph. And people are dying mostly on e-bikes, which were responsible for 16 of this year’s 19 fatalities, versus three victims on regular bikes. Moreover, this year’s figures don’t include another 11 deaths on stand-up e-scooters.

 Citibike’s six-year-old e-bike program has become an attractive nuisance — like an uncovered swimming pool to a child. This month, when two girls joyriding downtown attempted to overtake a heavy truck from the right, one of them, 15-year-old Daria Serkov, was crushed — the latest Citibike e-bike ...