Concerns Over E-Bikes Crowding Streets Surface in Midtown South Police Meeting

E-bikes were once again a dominant topic at the Midtown South Precinct community counsel, as residents complained the motorized bikes are taking over the city and the precinct’s commanding officer pledged to continue to crackdown on offenders.

The meeting of the Chelsea-based precinct on May 26 occurred two days before a deadly head-on collision on the Queensboro Bridge resulted in the death of a 39-year-old man driving a stand-up scooter and 35-year-old man driving a light weight pedal bike.

Chelsea residents say they are concerned that deliveristas seem to congregate in great numbers. They also voiced concern that the recent changes announced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn that will double the width of one of Manhattan’s busiest protected bike lanes along Sixth Avenue could lead to more reckless bike activity.

To help ensure the safety of pedestrians, councilmember Virginia Maloney, who was present at the meeting, said she supports law 876, which codifies a citywide top speed of 15 mile per hour for e-bikes. “There’s a surge in pedestrian injuries as e-bikes are a more common mode of transportation and for delivery,” Maloney acknowledged. “So I’m working on that and also co-sponsoring Priscilla’s law, which would require license and registration for e-bikes,” said Maloney. The precincts commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Christopher Treubig reported that: “As far as bicycle accidents, we’re up slightly 44 versus 39 for the year to date, up to 12.8%.”

Treubig reported that the precinct is enforcing the established laws surrounding bike permits and parking, but that criminal summonses are no longer being issued for infractions regarding e-bikes. The controversial program last year was handing out summonses that required offenders to turn up in court to enter a plea. Opponents claimed it was placing stiffer fines on bikers for things like running a red than drivers of automobiles would face for the same offense. For instance, a car driver could plead guilty by mail; a bike offender could not.

“Our traffic team does still address traffic concerns, but in regards to e-bikes, and they do do enforcement, whether it’s running red lights, not obeying traffic signals,” he said. A few months prior, there was an issue over illegally parked e-bikes and scooters outside of the Redbury Hotel, which was shut down in 2023 and then reopened as a migrant shelter the same year. “We’ve done 2 operations in confiscating bikes that have been chained, locked to scaffoldings, and abandoned. We have had those complaints over by the Redbury. We’ve done multiple operations over there,” reported Treubig. But that didn’t stop the trend as a whole, there were still many complaints of loitering drivers and bikes.

It seems to be that even when the police are able to crack down on one spot of e-bike congregation, another one pops up not too far away. There have been 311 noise complaints coming from 40th and Broadway regarding delivery bikes congregating underneath scaffolding, as well as on 44th and 9th. When the Row Hotel shut down, a place where many delivery drivers were residing, as well as the migrant shelter on 57th, the number of loitering drivers diminished, but not for long. “Now it just seems to have swelled up,” said Brian Weber. He later added: “We get clusters of delivery guys hanging out, we’re talking 20 to 30 men at a time. We see it in the precincts to the south of us...we also have some hotspots in the neighborhood where we see it. I think that’s something to be conscious of.”

Many of these delivery drivers are locking their bikes up overnight in areas that inhibit safe pedestrian walkways. “Residents were calling them bike bushels,” said Weber. With the upcoming World Cup festivities, civilian safety is of the utmost importance. “Pedestrian space is cherished and there really needs to be some way that the city is able to help mitigate the proliferation of delivery drivers loitering on our streets,” said Weber. Treubig then mentioned that the racks on 9th avenue will be moved to the middle of the cross streets. “They say they will remove all of the ones that are on the sidewalks now.”

For the year to date, motorized, two-wheel summonses were up 320 percent, 252 versus 60, Treubig said. For regular pedal only bicycles, the number of tickets issued is up nine percent, 169 versus 155. Treubig addressed these numbers: “Overall, we are addressing the motorized two-wheel scooters and the regular bicycles and we will continue to do so.”