By Amy Zimmer
DNAinfo News Editor
UPPER EAST SIDE — Residents worried about the proliferation of deliverymen zipping along their streets on electric bicycles are calling for increased regulation of the battery-powered two wheelers.
"I’m inclined to believe that anything that has a power-assist should be licensed and registered," said Jonathan Horn, co-chair of Community Board 8's Transportation Committee, at a joint public safety, transportation and street life forum on electric bikes Tuesday night.
Committee members passed a resolution calling for registration of the bikes and licensing of the operators. The community board resolution is only advisory.
Electric bikes are not entirely legal, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles and the city's Administrative Code. While federal law allows electric bikes under 750 watts limited to 20 mph, New York City does not allow those bikes that can exceed 15 mph.
A law that would have legalized electric bikes languished in Albany after passing the Assembly two years ago. It would have classified as regular bicycles those vehicles with fully operable pedals and an electric motor no greater than 1,000 watts and a maximum speed of 20 mph.
"The fact is elderly pedestrians are being run down," said James Wilson, a member of Community Board 6, who ventured uptown for the meeting to complain about dangerous bike riding — electric or not — he sees by deliverymen in his neighborhood, between East 23rd and 34th streets.
He mentioned various friends he said had ended up in the hospital after being hit by regular bikes, including a man who went to the VA Hospital and never returned, a woman who tore a knee cap and another who had a shoulder injury.
Several other residents said they feared unsafe cycling overall. Electric bikes were particularly nerve-racking because of their speed, some said.
A bicycle rider pedaling up First Avenue near 89th Street was hit by a deliveryman on an electric bike going the wrong way this summer, recounted an Upper East Sider at the community board meeting. The storyteller, who declined to give his name, said he called the cops.
As the deliveryman waited for an interpreter, he apparently called his restaurant and another delivery cyclist zoomed past grabbing the food before anyone could find out what restaurant he worked for.
"These bicycles cost $750 or more. The deliverymen aren’t buying them. Their restaurants are," he said, urging for more pressure on restaurant owners to ensure that riders follow road rules.
Community Board 8 member Barry Schneider also supported exerting some sort of public pressure on restaurants with dangerous deliverymen bicyclists and mentioned a grassroots precedent: "I keep thinking of Ed Koch and his pooper scooper law," he said, citing the former mayor's movement to clean up the streets by convincing citizens to call out other citizens who didn't clean up after their dogs.
Aja Hazelhoff, a bicycle advocate from Transportation Alternatives, told community members about her organization’s newly-created "Bike Friendly Business Directory," in which businesses can participate if they sign a code promising their workers will uphold safe and legal cycling behavior.
"It’s voting with your dollars,"she said. "There needs to be a feedback process."
Her organization, which supports electric assisted bikes as ways to expand bike-riding to those who might need extra pedaling power, did not want to see licensing or other regulations added. The group thought that instead, more attention should be focused on the NYPD stepping up enforcement of all bike riding before any new laws are created.
No restaurant owners attended Tuesday's meeting, but Victor Tu, the manager of Lili's Noodle Shop and Grill on Third Avenue and 85th Street, had told DNAinfo he got rid of his deliverymen’s old bicycles three months ago and replaced them with a fleet of five electric bikes to improve his workers delivery time and double the restaurant's delivery zone.
"It’s much faster," Tu said of the bikes with batteries. "We added 10 blocks."
