2mo ago

🚨 New York City is holding a public hearing on Mayor Adams's controversial proposal to cap e-bike speed-limits at 15 mph. People can file a written comment until 5 p.m. 📢

Every year, City agencies make over 100 changes or additions to the City rules that are an important part of how government interacts with the public. New Yorkers can review proposed rules and voice their opinions about those rules before they are adopted into law.

Today is a big day for the future of e-bikes in New York City. A hearing starts at 10 a.m. You can file a written comment until 5 p.m. You can also send an email to rules@dot.nyc.gov until 5 p.m

NYC @lemmy.world

The Department of Transportation is holding a public hearing on Mayor Adams's controversial proposal to cap e-bike speed-limits at 15 mph. You can file a written comment until 5 p.m.

rules.cityofnewyork.us /rule/speed-limits-for-e-bikes-e-scooters-and-pedal-assist-commercial-bicycles/

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130 comments

16mph is the limitation in germany. If your bike is faster, you have to register it an pay tax, and cant use dedicated bicycle infratructure anymore.
16mph is exactly the speed where I'm fast enough but dont feel like I would die in a crash.
Everything above would require protective clothing like on motorcycles Imo, and that kind of defeats the purpose for ebikes for me. I want to ride my bike but don't want to have to fight against wind and going up the hill.
If an ebike is as fast as a motorcycle, it should get treated as one.
- Yeah this proposal is reasonable. I wouldnt want to share my bikepath with old people driving more than 25kmh. They just dont have the reaction time to safely drive at speeds like that and even that is actually waaay to fast for the oldest. If you wanna go faster, use your muscles and/or drive on the road.
  
  if you want to go faster use your muscles
  Okay but the fact that you can say this without it being a joke proves how stupid this limit is.
  
  This proposal is for the road, which is why it's crazy. 25kmh limit on a bike path is fine. A speed limit on roads that is lower for bikes than cars is insane, when the justification for pedal bikes having a higher speed limit is that they're lighter than ebikes. Cars should have a 5 mph limit in that case.
- 16mph is the limitation in germany.
  In my experience, a typical bike-friendly city in Germany will have 30 km/h limit for cars anyway (18 mph). NYC "official" speed limit is 25mph.
- Yeah but blinking bike lights are also illegal to sell in Germany because you realized that drunk drivers target fixate on them and you apparently found that ban to be a better solution than aggressively cracking down on drunks. So I don't give much credence to the rational integrity of German vehicular law. I go faster than 16 MPH literally every time I get on my bike. A regular non-motorized bike, powered only by me.
  
  It’s the exact same in the Netherlands. The pedal assist is capped at that speed, but nothing stops you from powering though that and going faster. Not that it makes any sense to do so for the average daily office commuter.
  
  You have hands
- Yeah about 15 is fine to me but no lower. so 16 is fine and maybe over 20 gets to be a bit much but im fine anywhere along that range.

This feels like it's purposefully designed to kneecap the adoption of e-bikes by rendering all class 1 and 2 e-bikes illegal and making it harder/more expensive to buy new ones because they have to have bespoke detuning for the NYC market.
- IMO, it should be 20mph, but it's a software limit. It's nothing to "tune" it.
  If you want to go faster, get a motorcycle license. The higher end ebikes are getting ridiculous. Their frames, tires, and brakes are not designed for the power and speed they can put down.
  
  IMO, it should be 20mph, but it’s a software limit. It’s nothing to “tune” it.
  You're talking about vehicles that typically aren't open source and don't have a firmware update mechanism. There is no reason to expect they're even possible to change without swapping out the entire controller.
- This is a widely supported issue where I am, mostly because bike lanes are for self propelled vehicles and ebikes are sharing the roads with far heavier and faster vehicles that require licensing and insurance.
  They fall between two stools though I am for licensing and insurance of them.
- I don't know if there's a shadier reasoning behind it, and there very well might be, but IMO it's a pretty reasonable speed limit for using bike infrastructure. Most people on standard bikes could only ever get to those speeds with a decent amount of effort. Many wouldn't even be able to.
  If you want to go that fast, you should get in the car lanes with the other dangerous people.
- Did you read the bill? This is a road speed limit, not a mandated governor for the motor. It's still super dumb, but it shouldn't do anything to class 1, 2, or 3 sales.
  
  Hmm... Well, I guess that's not as bad, but it's still a little inconvenient since it would require Class 1 and 2 ebike riders to more carefully monitor their speed instead of just riding all the way up to the assisted top speed knowing that they're still in compliance.
- Do you live or work there? I see ebikes being used on sidewalks by delivery guys all the time. Limiting speeds makes sense for NYC IMO
  
  I lived and worked there for 15+ years, was a daily cyclist (Non-motorized). eBikers do ride onto the sidewalk at the very start or end of their trips. But they're already not allowed to do that - NYC has long had a blanket ban on riding any vehicle on sidewalks. The city should consider actually enforcing their existing rules before making new (IMO very stupid) ones. This is just reactionary pandering.
  
  My lowly non-NYCer opinion is that that sounds like a reason to crack down on sidewalk riding, rather than the speed.

Why not just add speed limits to areas where higher speeds are an issue? That's been the approach to cars -- no car is limited to 140 kmh despite speeds above that are illegal pretty much everywhere...
Regular bikes can easily go above 15 mph as well, so why should this only affect e-bikes?
- Its basically to define it because of where it can be used. Like motorcycles can't be driven where bikes can.
- ebikes are frequently heavier and are frequently ridden on sidewalks in NYC.
  
  Maybe put in some proper bike lanes so riders don't feel they need to ride on the sidewalk? 🤔

= 24 kilometers/hr for those also wondering

Canuck here. The city I live in only caps ebike speeds on the pathways at 20km/hr (Personally I only see riders going this fast when there's no one else in sight. When they approach others on the pathways they slow right down. Most also slow right down when going around blind corners or bends). You can ride them on sidewalks but must have peddle assist disabled. When riding on the roads you must follow the rules of the road.
Could be an option for NYC. But limiting ONLY ebike speed on roads is not cool. Why should they be forced to go slower when big death traps can go flying past them??
- My eBike (Turbo Levo) only does 20mph max. That’s acceptable. 15mph tho is bonkers. 18mph is fine. But 20 should be the limit.
  
  RIght way to regulate ebikes is with speed limits in various areas. (not specs restrictions). 20mph in bike lanes with high bike and nearby pedestrian traffic seems about right.
  
  Here in Vietnam, they have ebikes that do 115 kph (though 99% of city driving is like like 15 mph). If the rest of traffic is going that speed, shouldnt you be able to go that speed?
  
  Fellow Canuck is talking kmph, that's approx half mph

That sounds pretty fair to me. Very few regular bikers go faster than 20-25. Especially with more weight, like delivery or cargo bikes, and also especially with the e-motor support there is a lot of weight and power behind those bikes.
And bike lines are usually built for "regular" use, not high speed. All the curves, break distances etc. get planned with around that speed and not a whole lot more.
The original purpose of supporting disabled people who can't use a regular bike is still served and people don't have to be afraid of maniacs going 50mph in places where "common sense" would already advise them not to. If you're using a cargo bike, that also still works and you get not so gently instructed to watch the speed with your cargo.
Maybe they could do something where to use a bike lane, it has to be speed capped. Idk.
- very few[not none] regular bikers go faster than 20-25
  Therefore
  limit electric to 15
  Uh
  
  Pretty sure they mean 25 kph which would be 15 mph
  
  Therefore
  So you want to go 80mph on a bike lane?! That would be crazy!
  ;)
- It's not for bike lanes, the law is for "NYC Streets". It's a very dumb limit.

Good idea - if you also cap car speeds at 15mph
- The state of traffic already does that...

Step 1: Limit e-bike speed
Step 2: Enforce minimum speed limit
Step 3: Profit
- That's all it's about. Nyc has been engaging in shady practices for a while. It's almost like an unregulated tax on the middle class. If you can afford a car, but have to use street parking, you're going to get tickets. Even if you've done nothing wrong, those meter maids have their quotas to fill. They're getting greedier. Now that public roads are tolled the next natural escalation seems to be fining ebikes...
  Next you'll pay a few dollars to walk every few blocks.
  
  We have jaywalking already but that's more of a gray area tbh

Love it here on /c/fuckbikes
- This thread is full of people who have never been to NYC and think this cap is somehow a good idea and not a death sentence both figuratively for micromobility and literally for e-bikers who have to deal with much faster car traffic.
  
  It's not even about nyc. Haven't been there in a while myself.
  Its about car brains who see cars as entitled and everything else as the enemy. The mods really need to get bulk bans going.
  
  Is it a road speed limit? or a limit on bike power? If the former, it's not so much an attack on micromobility. Can take the road to pass or go faster. The cars can physically do 120mph, but have NYC speed limits.

Is this for sidewalk or road? Road speed limit should be same as cars. On the road I try to go faster to be safer. If there are good bike paths, whatever the non-e-bike speed limit is, e-bike same. I don't think bikes belong on the sidewalk in NYC, but here when I am on a sidewalk I think about 17mph is the top speed so yeah 15 seems reasonable.
- This is not for sidewalk use, this is for road use. NYC has forbidden vehicles on sidewalks for a long time.
  
  Literally never enforced, ebikes love to speed down sidewalks

This seems like a "why not both" situation. Limit e-bike speeds to those that are typical in most parts of the world and reduce city speed limits for cars to 20mph, and enforce it aggressively.
- Because they’re not doing both, which will encourage people to switch from e-bikes back to cars. This rule will make NYC streets more dangerous, no doubt.
- No limit for bikes without limits for cars.
- NYC actually reduced local road speeds to 25MPH city-wide like 10 years or so back under Bill de Blasio. It was an uphill fight with state government since the state is who gets to set those speeds unless the locality puts speed signs on every street where there's an exception, and even NYC didn't have the money (Or space) to put a speed sign on literally every block in the city. So after decades of 30+ being the norm the city was able to negotiate the state down to 25. 20 would have been better but the state wouldn't have let it happen and that's also the pace where New York drivers lose their patience and just start habituating to breaking the rule all the time.

This makes no sense. A cyclist with a decent road bike can easily go faster than that.
- I can go faster than that on the clapped out bike I bought when I was still in school. And I'm 45.
  In the UK e-Bikes are limited to 15mph (in that the motor cuts out above that, so you can pedal faster if you want), and frankly that's fast enough. Plenty of idiots can't handle even that, and of course they don't use helmets either because fuck having your brain inside your skull, right?
  It also depends on your definition of e-Bike, because I've also seen it applied to what are basically motorbikes with an electric engine. I think that sort of thing should require a license and test to be allowed to ride in public.
  
  When I was younger and in better shape my average speed was 35-40kmh (about 20-25mph).
  15mph seems frustratingly and uncomfortably slow. But then again, I’m not terribly familiar with e-bikes. I know that some only help you pedal and others are basically motorcycles, so lumping them all together doesn’t make sense.

Just for reference cause I was curious.
The average car speed in New York City varies greatly by location, but is generally quite slow. In Midtown Manhattan, the average speed has been recorded as low as 4.8 mph, which is slower than a brisk walk

Just build more and bigger sidewalks. In shenzhen and beijing, they often have 2 separated bike/moped lanes on either side of the road, a bike/scooter parking lane, and then like 20 feet of sidewalk you can also ride your electric moped on.
- Take one or two of the traffic lanes to cover it. They have enough.
  
  They've already done this. Side walks have been widened bus stops have extentions into the road lanes have been removed for bike lanes and other lanes have been removed for bus lanes. Major Manhattan roadways like 2nd ave have been pushed from 4 - 5 lanes to 2 - 3 depending on the area

though i agree with regulation, i am a 20mph limit guy; however i dont live in new york (and have never been). if 15mph suits the city, i see no problem with it.
hopefully the mayor has taken a few days to ride around in an ebike to know what he is signing (though i highly doubt it)
- 15 MPH does not suit the city. I was a daily cyclist in NYC for a long time and 15 MPH is generally the minimum speed you need to be going to keep safe in traffic. Capping a small motorized vehicle to 15 MPH while cars are zooming past at 30+ is not good.
  
  ooohhhh, i didnt realize the cars had a faster speed limit. yeah, thats kinda fucked up.

i bet that this would cut profits from those delivering food and stuff with an E-bike in NYC
hey many of those people are immigrants! who'd a thunk it ?

15 mph speed limit on roads? That is genuinely the dumbest thing I have read in forever. 15 on mixed use paths is still a kind of low limit, but why on earth should ebikes have a different speed limit on shared roads? Am I supposed to brake down every slight incline next time I visit NYC?
Classic legislating the out group from the in group. The idea that the justification in the text is that "ebikes are heavier than normal bikes [so less dangerous]" while at the same time having a higher speed limit for 2 ton pedestrian killers is insane.
- because they want people purchasing or renting vehicles, and paying for public transportation.
  ebikes and regular bikes undercut city profits and private industries invested in new yorks current infrastructure.
  making it difficult, pointless, or seemingly "unsafe and scary" is just another way for them to squeeze the already dry working man for a few more drops.
  they want continuous subscribers, not "freeloadin communist lbrl sissies"
  
  I don't think there's some nefarious "they" cabal here, certainly not an organized one trying to discourage biking. Occam's Razor is there are a few different types of people supporting this. Chief among them are just carbrained people who can't fathom biking for transportation, who don't realize how slow that is when they've only toodled on a 35 pound mountainbike recreationally at 10 mph. Then you've also got people who have almost been hit by a delivery scooter thinking "ebikes are a menace" solely because they're new and something some "other" group of people uses, and so it's easy to say "they must be stopped" while ignoring the crazy fast, way heavier cars they're already desensitized to.

commenting for visibility.

there's going to be no Premium Rush 2...

Limiting e-bike speeds is a great idea in NYC given how frequently they are used on sidewalks and pedestrian walkways on bridges.
- Okay so where are the hardware caps on car speed, given that they are used around pedestrian crossings, and several orders of magnitude more lethal?
  
  Not a new Yorker, but it's my understanding most modern cars do have a govener kick in and limit the speed. Usually somewhere around 110, so not practically useful, but the cap does exist
  
  Well instead cars have a complex process of permitting, licensing, and yearly insurance requirements to make drivers are trained, and financially covered in the event of an accident.
- They are illegal on pedestrian walkways. All vehicles are illegal on pedestrian walkways and that is not a new rule. Just enforce the existing rules and let them keep going street speed on the streets.

This seems reasonable to me for New York City. In most places I wouldn't want to go more than 20mph for my own safety. In pedestrian crowded NYC I'd be doing half that at most.

Regulation is good.

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