During a panel discussion I participated in the other day, a member of the audience asked a version of question I get all the time: Why should we support active transportation if no one bikes in bad weather? I live in the Pacific Northwest, and the bike lane’s always empty when it rains — how is that “essential infrastructure”? I gave some variation on my usual two-minute answer — a lot of people do bike in the rain, even if they do so less, and we can do a lot more through policy and culture to increase those numbers. But there’s more to that answer. The truth is, the relationship betwee ..read more

One of the city’s most dangerous industries is getting a major pedal-assist from a coalition of advocates committed to making food delivery work safer. Dozens more delivery workers exchanged used two-wheelers — with hazardous batteries — for new e-bikes with safer ones at a trade-in event last Thursday on the Lower East Side organized by the Equitable Commute Project and Los Delivery Boys. More than 100 old bikes have been swapped so far in this fashion. “It’s an upgrade to the bike that’s popular with delivery workers, but these batteries are certified,” said Melinda Hanson, co-founder o ..read more

Delivery canceled. Mayor Adams surrounded himself with delivery workers on Monday to announce an increase in the deliverista minimum wage, yet declared “off topic” two questions asked by Streetsblog that involve critical workplace issues for the delivery workers — questions that Streetsblog has been asking City Hall for weeks. With Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar in her familiar spot to the mayor’s right, Streetsblog asked Hizzoner if he supports his red-wearing ally’s bill to require all e-bike riders to register their currently legal-without-a-plate bikes with the DMV. Streetsblog also ..read more

For a significant portion of New Yorkers, the streets are, quite simply, our workplace. For us, the safety of our streets is something we care deeply about — and we have grave concerns that our elected leaders are about to put us in even more harm’s way in the name of street safety, Several recently introduced bills would force workers to register our individual e-bikes and obtain insurance and inspections for them. As members of a collective representing New York City’s nearly 65,000 app delivery workers, my fellow deliveristas and I were deeply disappointed to see local and state leader ..read more

If there is one person who embodies the sport, passion, utility and exhilaration of cycling, it is Peter Flax. He’s not only been pedaling around since growing up in the New York suburbs, but as a longtime bike writer and the former editor of Bicycling, he’s occupied a lofty perch from which to give a “State of the Cycling World” address, which he’s more or less done in his new book, “Live to Ride: Finding Joy and Meaning on a Bicycle” (Artisan, March 19, 2024). It’s a visually arresting overview of all the different tribes that make up the cycling family — and how there is strength in o ..read more

City officials showed off designs for the planned delivery worker rest stop and hub that will replace a defunct newsstand in front of City Hall. The Department of Parks and Recreation plans to tear down the vacant Koch-era kiosk on Broadway and install a slightly larger building offering nearly 50 e-bike battery chargers, a place to rest, and a small office space for some of the tens of thousands of app-based workers, advocates and officials told members of Manhattan’s Community Board 1 on Thursday night. “[It works] sort of as a center of everything to make sure that the workers delivering fo ..read more

Dear Commissioner Caban and Capt. Lazarus, Last year was the deadliest year for cyclists in New York City since 1999. And 23 of the 30 people died while riding e-bikes. Nonetheless, it appears that NYPD’s approach to e-bike fatalities and to citizen complaints about e-bikes is a crackdown on slow-moving traditional cyclists, presumably because they are easier to catch. I am writing with what I call a tale of two cycles.  Recently, I was walking home from a Three Parks Democrats meeting on the sidewalk of W. 103rd Street and was confronted by a person riding a powered electric bicycle ridi ..read more

Cyclist deaths hit a 23-year high in 2023 — but if you ask the New York Times and city Department of Transportation, that grim statistic comes with a big asterisk. “Most of the 30 cyclists who died in 2023 were riding electric bikes,” reads the second sentence of an otherwise comprehensive and nuanced piece by Times data reporter Keith Collins, “Why Bicycle Deaths in New York City Are at a 23-Year High.” After noting that seven of the dead e-bike riders (“nearly a third”) died “without any apparent interference from a vehicle of pedestrian,” Collins finally gets to the meat of the problem: 11 ..read more

Finally, they’re taking charge! The city’s first public e-bike charging station opened in Cooper Square on Thursday — the start of an overdue six-month pilot that is part of a “Charge Safe Ride Safe Action Plan” for delivery workers that Mayor Adams announced last year. The inaugural infrastructure will be followed by locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn “in the coming weeks,” according to City Hall, which hopes to accomplish two things: improve the safety of recharging the lithium-ion batteries on which delivery workers depend and counter the ongoing demonization of e-bikes. “We count on deliv ..read more

A Manhattan City Council member is trying to juice the city’s low-energy effort to bring the city’s first electrified Citi Bike dock to his district. City Council Member Erik Bottcher fired off a letter to Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez and ConEd President Tim Cawley demanding that the pair figure out whatever it is that’s preventing Lyft from installing a Citi Bike station that’s plugged in directly to the electric grid, a setup that would allow e-bikes to charge while sitting in docks rather than requiring workers to scurry around replacing spent batteries. “I … u ..read more