Speed Limits for E-Bikes, E-Scooters, and Pedal-Assist Commercial Bicycles

Online comments: 321

• Charles Fisher

  The City fails to take action on most speeding, red light running, and other dangerous behavior by drivers. This proposed rule targets a group of road users that comparatively cause extremely few injuries. Why should an e-bike be limited to 15 mph from 20 mph when a Dodge Charger with illegal modified exhaust system can speed by a school every day at 55 mph with no consequences? Thank you

  Comment added June 17, 2025 9:09am

• Elaina Mendiola

  I do not support this rule change to 15 mph. I use my e-bike to get around the city, and this rule will make my life so much harder.

  Comment added June 17, 2025 11:43am

• Jackson Chabot

  Echoing what Charles said, “The City fails to take ANY action on most speeding, red light running, and other dangerous behavior by car drivers. This proposed rule targets a group of road users that comparatively cause extremely few injuries. Why should an e-bike be limited to 15 mph from 20 mph when a Dodge Charger with illegal modified exhaust system can speed by a school every day at 55 mph with no consequences?”

  Comment added June 18, 2025 10:08am

• Jehiah Czebotar

  NY VTL 1642 (26.(a)) prohibits NYC from establishing a speed limit “throughout the city” at a limit below 20 mph. A citywide limit of 15mph on commercial bicycles is such a prohibited limit.
  NY VTL 1642 (26.(b)) requires that a city wide speed limit applicable throughout such city shall only be lowered or raised pursuant to a local
  law. This proposed rule making is not a local law.

  https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/VAT/1642

  There is no proposed definition for “pedal-assist commercial bicycle” for which this provision applies so this rule is unenforceable.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 10:19am

• kevin

  This is a terrible solution to the problem. E bikes should be encouraged to go in the car lane and speeds should be slowed across the city to match class 1 + 2 ebikes (20 mph). If you want deliveristas to ride more responsibly, the pay structure of the apps needs to be changed. This rule change is backwards and illegal. Build more infrastructure for non car based transport. Build more infrastructure for non motorized transport

  Comment added June 18, 2025 10:50am

• S

  Good idea. But no penalties mentioned for violators.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 11:52am

• Yvonne Groseil

  This is a bad joke. At age 88 I would not survive being hit by a bike going 2 mph let alone 15. We need Priscilla’s Law to get visible licenses on these vehicles.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 11:56am

• THIS RULE IS NOT ENFORCEABLE

  The NYC DOT’s proposed rule to cap e-bike and scooter speeds at 15 MPH is a band-aid and insults the intelligence. While this may look good on paper, it is utterly meaningless without enforcement. Riders regularly break existing laws—racing through red lights, riding on sidewalks, and endangering pedestrians—without consequence. A speed limit that cannot be enforced because these vehicles lack license plates or registration is an empty gesture.

  Real safety comes from accountability, not unenforceable rules. Priscilla’s Law, which would require visible ID markings and registration for e-micromobility devices, offers a real solution—but it has been blocked by self-serving lobbying pressure from Transportation Alternatives and others. This rule does nothing to protect New Yorkers, especially the elderly, from reckless e-bike riders. Until the City implements meaningful enforcement and holds delivery platforms and CitiBike accountable, this rule is just political theater.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 12:04pm

• The Rule Ignores the Real Safety Crisis

  If an elderly person is hit by a 15 MPH e-bike on a sidewalk or in a crosswalk, the impact is still dangerous and potentially deadly. A speed limit in isolation does nothing to prevent sidewalk riding or reckless behavior, and it offers no comfort to those who have already been injured by such collisions.

  Without Priscilla’s Law which would -with identifiable license plate numbers and registration, hold lawbreaking e-bike riders to account -this new rule is an embarassing smoke and mirror mitigaiton.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 12:10pm

• Sidewalk Riding and Red Light Running Are Rampant

  Can’t tell you how many times I’ve barely dodged E-mobility riders riding on sidewalks, running red lights, traveling against traffic, and weaving dangerously close to me and other pedestrians—all of which already violate existing traffic laws. These infractions go completely unenforced, and are daily hazards to me as an elder, to children, and yes even dogs…one was killed a few weeks ago!

  Simply posting a 15 MPH rule will not change that reality. Accountability will!

  Many elderly people have already been hit by speeding e-bikes on sidewalks or in a crosswalk-the impact has been horrific, dangerous and potentially deadly. A 15 MPH speed limit in isolation does nothing to prevent sidewalk riding or reckless behavior, and it offers no comfort to those who have already been injured by such collisions.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 12:19pm

• Political Pressure and Policy Cowardice

  The 15 MPH new amended rule to be implemented by the avowed arbiters of “safety” -the DOT-flies in the face of real mitigation and is nothing less than dereliction of its duty as stewards to actually, really, truly protect pedestrians.

  Would that the DOT’s Rasputin manipulating lobbying organization Transportation Alternatives and affiliated advocacy groups not have aggressively lobbied against real accountability measures, such as Priscilla’s Law, we might not be here with only superficial ‘fixes’.

  The DOT’s proposed rule reads more like a symbolic gesture to appease public concern than a meaningful safety regulation. Mayor Adams’ administration continues to downplay or ignore the cries of communities pleading for safety and order on their sidewalks and streets.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 12:28pm

• John Campo

  Stop the insanity no E-skate boards no E-uniwheels no E-boogie boards no E-vehicles of any kind with out a license, and insurance and a visible plate. Any E-vehicle cannot exceed 20 MPH on a city street and E-vehicles are not allowed on bike paths period. Now enforce that law that was on the books for the last hundred years for a reason.. NYCEVSA.com

  Comment added June 18, 2025 2:08pm

• KevinM

  This appears arbitrary, unenforceable, and unrealistic.
  There is also a safety concern for E-Bike riders if they cannot match the speed of passing vehicles that are 100x heavier.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 5:02pm

• Geoffrey Thomas

  This rule, as written, is unrealistic and unenforceable. It will do nothing to solve a real safety problem, and it will only cause more problems. It also does nothing to regulate electric mopeds and electric motorcycles.

  Unpowered bicycles can easily go 15 mph or more, especially in “Brooklyn of ample hills” as Walt Whitman put it, on bridges, etc. If we’re going to put specific numbers in, we should be serious about what those numbers mean. This rule requires e-bikes to go SLOWER than unpowered bicycles, including in areas completely separated from pedestrian traffic like the bike lanes on bridges. This is nonsensical, and to the extent anyone follows the rule, it puts everyone at risk.

  This will lead to one of two enforcement outcomes. Either the city will pull over every cyclist coming off a bridge or at the foot of a hill to see if their bicycle is an e-bike (while also making the roads more dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians alike as they navigate around the traffic stop), or there will be a law on the books that nobody is enforcing (except, perhaps, when the city is looking for a pretext to arrest someone for reasons completely unrelated to safety).

  I recently took a trip on CitiBike after speeds were lowered to 15 mph, on a route that like most of the city lacks bike lanes. I felt significantly less safe in the traffic lanes because it is harder to keep up with traffic, but there is not enough space for a car to legally and safely pass me. So cars behind me are slowed down, contributing to congestion. My ability to get out of the way of a collision with a pedestrian or vehicle was limited because of the lower speed. I fear that CitiBike riders will decide that it’s safer for them to ride on sidewalks, which is the exact opposite of what rulemaking should encourage.

  It is unquestionable that there are serious risks and safety problems on our streets. This is an unserious approach. The city has a duty to solve problems and not engage in political theater that will just cause more problems.

  There are several other approaches that would be better than this rule. For instance, a city-wide 20 mph speed limit on all vehicles would be legal (see Jehiah’s comment about legal authority), would not cause e-bikes to be required to go slower than unpowered bikes, and would not cause e-bikes to be unable to keep up with traffic; everyone would share the same 20mph limit. It also makes enforcement much easier, because it would apply to mopeds and motorcycles as well as e-bikes. There are downsides to this approach, but it would be much better than the current one.

  Last fall I submitted testimony regarding Intro 606, which was also an unserious approach that would not accomplish the goals it promised to accomplish. Much of what I wrote applies to this proposal too. Please see especially pages 3-7 here: https://ldpreload.com/p/intro-606-ebike-testimony.pdf

  I encourage the city to find a serious approach to addressing a serious problem.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 5:23pm

• Meredith Abrams

  NY VTL 1642 (26.(a)) prohibits NYC from establishing a speed limit
  “throughout the city” at a limit below 20 mph. A citywide limit of 15mph on commercial bicycles is such a prohibited limit.

  NY VTL 1642 (26. (b)) requires that a city wide speed limit applicable throughout such city shall only be lowered or raised pursuant to a local law. This proposed rule making is not a local law.
  There is no proposed definition for “pedal-assist commercial bicycle” so this rule is unenforceable.

  Furthermore, the real threat to safety on our streets is cars, particularly oversized trucks and SUVs. Regulate those before coming for hardworking deliveristas and commuters on bike, whose statistical impact on safety pales to the carnage imposed by car and truck drivers.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 5:56pm

• J. Allison Crockett

  How do the supporters of this rule to limit the speed of bikes and e-bikes possibly think the rule is enforceable? NYC needs to have Pricilla’s law passed so that any operator breaking ANY rules can be identified. Passing laws (rules) that cannot be enforced only increases lawlessness.

  Comment added June 18, 2025 7:45pm

• Nathan Dennis

  This is an absolutely foolish decision. Of all the dangers on the road — e bikes are the ones you’re going to lower? Cars cause the absolute majority of fatalities, and yet you’re trying to slow e-bikes to a crawl? If e bikes are supposed to share the streets with cars, how the hell is this supposed to work with bikes capped? How about making more protected bike lanes, suspending licenses of dangerous CAR drivers, and removing illicit dirt bikes from the roads?

  Comment added June 21, 2025 12:58am

• Dan

  Requiring pedal assist bikes to be capped at 15mph while sharing roads / driving lanes with cars going 20 – 25 mph is not just impractical but it’s dangerous for everyone involved. This proposal ignores the realities of traffic flow and undermines safety for both cyclists and drivers.

  Comment added June 21, 2025 7:05am

• Alex Izen

  This will result in a notable cost increase for users, now facing longer ride times as a result of reduced speed.

  Comment added June 21, 2025 7:56am

• Daniel McNickle

  The proposed rule is DANGEROUS and will kill cyclists. Because of New York City’s grossly inadequate bicycling infrastructure, cyclists must routinely share lanes with motor vehicle traffic. To do this safely, cyclists must be allowed to ride at the prevailing speed of traffic. Drivers following cyclists in narrow lanes will often try to pass the cyclist in an unsafe manner to avoid having their own speed limited.
  If pedestrian safety is truly a priority then the solutions we seek are elsewhere. NYPD must be made to enforce the sidewalk riding ban consistently and fairly. Cyclists should be held accountable for following rules of the road: signaling, yielding right-of-way, riding in the direction of traffic, and riding in the street or in protected bike lanes. And the city must renew its commitment to installing protected bike infrastructure citywide, regardless of local community opinion. Paris, for example, has taken a very successful infrastructure-first approach to cycling and the rate of cycling has increased dramatically. More and more Parisians are moving around their city quickly, quietly, enjoyably, and cheaply on bicycles, and getting some much needed exercise while they do it. This could be New York, and we would all be better off for it.
  I urge you to reject this proposed rule change.
  Sincerely,
  Daniel G. McNickle
  Lifelong NYC Cyclist

  Comment added June 21, 2025 8:17am

• Henry Beebe-Center

  This rule is not based on empirical evidence, but rather anecdotes. E-bikes account for a very tiny fraction of the traffic fatalities/injuries in NYC. I urge the DOT to look and compare the bike/e-bike injury report to injuries that are a result of cars. The only reason e-bikes are on the chopping block is because they are novel, cars have been around for generations the injuries and deaths they cause are seen as a necessary side effect. Bikes and E-bikes are the SOLUTION to road safety, not the problem.

  We are in a crucial moment in which we should be doing everything we can to encourage people to try more sustainable transportation methods. This rule discourages e-biking and will put more people in the driver seat of cars, making our streets less safe.

  This is not the priority of a vision zero city.

  Comment added June 21, 2025 8:29am

• Alex Chichester

  I use my 7 speed e-bike to get around the city. This proposed rule would make my commute way longer and more difficult. This would require me to go *slower* than an unpowered bike, and would provide no increase in safety. As others have mentioned, this rule change seems arbitrary, unenforceable, illegal, and when far larger and more dangerous vehicles speed, run lights, and double park in the bike lane hilariously often, including oftentimes police vehicles, this is an insulting proposal.

  Comment added June 21, 2025 10:00am

• William Meehan

  This would be a terrible change for the city. The data clearly show that the vast majority of harmful injuries on NYC streets are caused by trucks and automobiles. And e-bikes are less dangerous even than mopeds, which are probably the true source of most “e-bike” complaints from people who cannot tell the difference. Furthermore, cyclists are safer when they’re able to ride at the same speed as the rest of traffic. It is entirely wrongheaded to limit bike speed to 15mph when automobiles and trucks are still allowed to go 25mph on most NYC streets. Instead, the city should pursue using Sammy’s Law to lower the citywide speed limit to 20mph for all road users.

  Comment added June 21, 2025 11:41am

• Jason

  The DOT has created a class of vehicle called “pedal assist commercial bicycle” in a previous rule and is now trying to regulate the maximum speed at which that class can be operated on city streets to 15 mph. This seems like it’s in violation of VTL §1642(26), which restricts the city’s ability to set speed limits to lower than 20 mph.

  I struggle to think of any justification for this rule-making maneuver that could not also be used to justify setting a de facto motor vehicle speed limit that is arbitrarily low, in clear violation of state law. For example, if this rule is determined to be legal, the DOT could create a new class defined as any vehicle weighing more than 1000 lbs (which would include every car/truck), and then regulate the maximum operational speed of that class to 10 mph.

  I’d also like to point out the glaring discrepancy between how this proposed rule was pitched to the public via a press release, and how the DOT has formally described its purpose in this rule-making process:

  From a June 4th press release: “New York City Mayor Eric Adams today announced a slate of new policies to enhance street safety, including a citywide 15 mile-per-hour speed limit for e-bikes and e-scooters on city streets.”

  From the ‘Statement of basis and purpose’ section: “Additionally, in order to apply consistent standards of operation to all e-mobility devices, DOT proposes to prohibit operating e-bikes and pedal-assist commercial bicycles at speeds in excess of 15 miles per hour.”

  The primary purpose of the rule that was pitched to the public by City Hall is “safety”, but the DOT does not mention safety at all here and rather writes that it’s about consistency. The DOT is tight-lipped about why this kind of consistency is so important, and does not even try to make the argument that it is about safety. Perhaps they realize that the safety angle is not justifiable in more formal contexts.

  The DOT writes “The proposed rule would thus change the speed limit for e-bikes and pedal-assist commercial bicycles from 25 miles per hour to 15 miles per hour”.

  This is incorrect. Class 1 and class 2 e-bikes have a 20 mph speed limit, while only class 3 e-bikes have a 25 mph speed limit, per VTL §1242(9). The DOT makes it sound like they are merely incorporating the 15 mph e-scooter limit into city’s traffic rules and providing consistency for other e-mobility devices for which the speed limit was not specifically contemplated. But that’s just not true – they are overriding established state law for e-bikes.

  This rule seems rushed, sloppily and inadequately rationalized, and is probably illegal.

  Comment added June 21, 2025 12:34pm

• Shoshanna W

  15 mph limit for citibikes will not solve any problems!! There needs to be separate lanes or enforcement of delivery/throttle only e-bikes in bike lanes. Removing protected lanes and decreasing speed limits for citibikes without them lowering prices accordingly only increases profits and not biker safety!

  Comment added June 21, 2025 2:59pm

• John Bowler

  i e-bike frequently for my daily commute between boerum hill and WTC, across the brooklyn bridge. i prefer a higher max speed for 1) the perfectly straight 1-mile separated bike lane on the brooklyn bridge, with no conflict with cars or pedestrians, and 2) avenues in manhattan where i have a better changes of riding the 15mph “green wave” if my max speed is higher.

  if DOT decides to limit e-bikes to 15mph on city streets for pedestrian safety, please consider geofencing different areas to have different speed limits. e.g. bridges with separated bike lines could be 18mph.

  an example of geofencing is london, where lime bikes are mostly limited to 25 km/h, except for some areas of the city where riders are automatically limited to a lower speed, i assume based on gps-tracking the bike or the rider’s phone.

  Comment added June 21, 2025 3:46pm

• Matt Bahr

  This is such an absurd proposal. Bikes already have speed limits on New York City streets: they’re the posted speed limits of all vehicles.

  Drivers will be forced to sit behind cyclists going 15 in a 25!

  Why would we set a global speed limit lower than the road limit? The best thing for our city is as easy as enforcing the speed limits already posted!

  There’s absolutely no safety concern for cyclists going the posted speed limits, any more than there are for cars doing the same. On 15 mph streets e bikes should go 15mph. On 35 mph they should be allowed to hit 35.

  Comment added June 21, 2025 4:12pm

• Roman Rekhler

  I have used citibike ebikes for almost 2 years. They have been a huge boon on my time spent outside, my time exploring all sorts of places in the city and brooklyn with far greater ease because of how easy and quick it was to get around. I can understand capping 3rd party company bikes to 20 or 18, but to make citibike cap their already extremely heavy bikes to 15 makes for a very sad experience. It’s also more dangerous; very often there are cars parks in the bike lanes, or you need to pass someone. Before, at 18, the bike was very often going at a speed closer to what the cars were doing and such exiting the bike lane to go around someone or something was safer : not, these 3 mph slower relative to the road, is actually 3mph larger differential with the cars.

  18 is already slow enough. If you want to make things safer, then a much better target would be ticketing people for blocking bike lanes, ticketing bikers who are on the sidewalk dangerously, ticketing those who are on their phones while riding..etc.

  I hope this change gets reverted asap. I thought my bike was broken yesterday. I literally took an citibike ebike home from 28th st because I knew it was going to be faster than a train – but instead it was slower due to the speed reduction. So i thought i just got unlucky with a broken bike, but my morning commute today also felt so unbearably slow. I always maximize caution and safety when I ride, so I feel like I’m being punished.

  The worst part is that once you get to 15, either because of how heavy the bikes are, or the system itself, it feels like it’s incredibly difficult to even pedal to go any faster at all. It just feels like the bike is purposely slowing you down. 🙁

  Comment added June 21, 2025 5:04pm

• Antonio Martin

  This speed limit is silly, because it does not apply to the delivery drivers who often go the wrong way and own their own bikes. This rule only harms normal citibike riders.

  Comment added June 21, 2025 6:34pm

• Jordan Armstrong

  The proposed rule will make Citibike uneconomical for New Yorkers to commute on bike paths from borough to borough, instead of focusing on the actual problem of delivery privately owned e bikes

  Comment added June 22, 2025 4:18pm

• Rebecca W.

  This is such a shameful thing for the city to be focusing on. It is CARS that kill pedestrians. Please, please, please focus on increasing micromobility, protecting bikers, and regulating CAR drivers.

  Comment added June 22, 2025 6:49pm

• Daniel Bersohn

  The proposed rule has no rational basis when reviewing what it does not regulate.

  Limiting vehicle speed based on kinetic energy risks requires a determination of a safe balance of kinetic energy and collision risk. Such a determination has not been made or proposed. This rule regulates speed primarily based on fuel and vehicle type and does not address kinetic energy. For example, trucks have much more kinetic energy at 25 mph than an e bike at 15 mph but are simply ignored by the rule. For example a 150lb person on a 15 lb bike at 16.5 mph is the exact same kinetic energy of a 135lb person on a 50lb e-bike with 15lbs of food at 15mph. A Toyota Prius at 25 mph has 45x the kinetic energy of either of the bike examples yet faces no 15mph limit. A 25 cubic yard garbage truck traveling at 34 mph, just below the speed at which a $50 automatic speeding ticket would be issued, has nearly 1,700 times the kinetic energy of the bicycle yet faces no restrictions.

  The risks to pedestrians associated with kinetic energy are not effectively managed by this regulation. Instead this regulation will drive enforcement against potentially disfavored groups and disincentivize a safer and more space efficient way of utilizing space between buildings on opposing blocks to move people and goods compared to four wheeled motor vehicles.

  The proposed rule is likely a violation of US EPCA because it regulates differentially based on energy source/fuel: only electric vehicles are impacted.

  I second all arguments published with attribution to commenter Jehiah Czebotar prior to submission of my comment.

  Comment added June 23, 2025 10:58am

• Daniel Kim

  The scapegoating of NYC bike riders must stop. Get the NYPD to enforce traffic laws – fix the real culprits of our dangerous roads!

  Comment added June 23, 2025 1:43pm

• Dylan Alberts

  Citi Bikes are not the problem in this city. Delivery eBikes are. Regulate the eBikes, which go much faster that Citi Bikes do today.

  Comment added June 23, 2025 6:20pm

• Ben B

  This new rule change is a slap in the face of those working toward a safer, cleaner, and less congested NYC. Cars cause significantly more traffic incidents, and have no such restrictions.

  Enforce existing rules around riding on sidewalks, or in the wrong direction (if you need to go the wrong way, you can walk your bike), and other dangerous behaviors. Do not limit speeds, continuing to degrade the ability to bike around the city.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 9:07am

• Cael

  This policy feels shortsighted and disproportionately burdens E Bike users without meaningfully addressing the core safety issues. By targeting e-bike speed limits, the city is relying on a blanket solution that fails to distinguish between responsible riders and the actual sources of danger: red-light violations, reckless operation, and underage or untrained riders using e-bikes.

  Enforcement of speed via throttling Citi Bikes places the responsibility on a large group of users who are already following the rules, while tasking NYPD an already overextended force, with managing bike speeds instead of focusing on dangerous behavior. This isn’t a scalable or strategic fix.

  Meanwhile, this change actively devalues the utility of Citi Bikes. Reduced speed means longer commutes, more red light stops, and diminished efficiency. All while prices were raised earlier this year. For many New Yorkers, this makes E Bikes a less viable transit option, especially compared to unregulated alternatives.

  If the true goal is safer streets, the solution lies in targeted enforcement of traffic laws and better regulation of privately owned e-bikes, not blanket throttling of a public mobility service that has otherwise helped reduce car dependency.

  Let’s come together and fix this with a real solution and stop incentivizing driving in the city.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 9:16am

• Gabriel Hoffman

  Dear NYC Department of Transportation,

  As a frequent Citi Bike user and strong advocate of sustainable, accessible transportation in New York City, I’m writing to express my opposition to the recent reduction of the e-bike speed limit from 18 mph to 15 mph.

  This change has had a noticeably negative impact on the rider experience, particularly for those who use Citi Bikes for daily commuting or errands. Citi Bike e-bikes are considerably heavier than standard bicycles, and the electric assist is a critical factor in making these bikes a practical transportation alternative. The reduced speed severely undermines this utility:

  Efficiency is compromised: Cutting the assist speed by 3 mph may seem minor on paper, but in practice it adds several minutes to even modest trips, cumulatively degrading the value proposition of the system.

  Rider fatigue and equity concerns: For smaller or older riders, or anyone with limited physical ability, pedaling a heavy e-bike at low speeds becomes an unreasonable burden—especially compared to privately owned e-bikes that remain unregulated at higher speeds.

  Safety concerns: Riders now spend more time in intersections and alongside traffic. Higher assist speeds enable safer and more confident navigation through the city.

  The original 20 mph assist cap (before the reduction to 18, and now 15 mph) was far more in line with real-world transportation needs. Lowering it further sends the wrong message about New York’s commitment to alternative, human-scale mobility solutions.

  I strongly urge the DOT to reverse this decision and restore the previous 18 mph limit—if not return to the original 20 mph setting. Let’s prioritize riders’ real experiences and keep Citi Bike a compelling alternative to car travel in our city.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 9:47am

• Ariyan Rejaee

  The proposed 15 mph speed limit for e bikes is not reasonable, as anyone with a moderate amount of fitness can operate a traditional bike at speeds in excess of 15 mph. Additionally, this now places cyclists in more risk when sharing roads with cars, who routinely pass by at over double the speed with inches of margin. Bikes will be unable to keep up with traffic and there is not extensive enough bike infrastructure to support this. Furthermore, the selective enforcement of road laws and discriminatory targeting practices must be stopped.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 10:23am

• David Hodgson

  Slowing Citibike e-bikes generally is the wrong solution. You know how few people are injured by bikes compared to cars and trucks. Slowing my commute by deliberately limiting speeds is a significant problem for me. I will either buy an e-bike or motorcycle.

  Instead please consider more bike lanes and less on street parking.

  You could improve enforcement against recklessness but end the bs tickets at stop signs and lights that hurt no one.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 10:38am

• Sagar Vemuri

  This has a hugely negative impact on New Yorkers who rely on e-mobility devices to get around.

  It also doubles the speed that cars pass you on the road. If cars are going the speed limit:

  The speed has already dropped from 20 MPH once to 18 MPH. If it drops again to 15 MPH, the following will occur:

  25-20 → 5 MPH passing speed
  25-18 → 7 MPH passing speed
  25-15 → 10 MPH passing speed (up 2x)

  Comment added June 24, 2025 11:08am

• Andrew Harvey

  The new citi bike limitation is terrifying being on streets with cars that are significantly larger, significantly less aware, and are going 10+ mph faster than we are now. Speed IS A SAFETY FEATURE. Please allow at least a 17 if not 20 mph speed limit.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 11:11am

• Elizabeth "Betty" Kay

  The proposed rule for a 15-mph speed limit for e-bikes, commercial e-bikes and e-scooters is a bad idea that I do not support. My concerns about having a speed limit that is lower than that for motor vehicles include:
  1. None of these e-devices have speedometers, so it is not clear how operators could self-enforce a speed limit unless the device has a speed limiter, something that NYS legislators have yet to require (the super speeder bill) for motor vehicles with a history of speeding.

  2. The NYPD has been issuing criminal summonses to cyclists for traffic offenses that cars and trucks get a traffic summons for. Thus, enforcement is already unduly harsh and unfair for those who use e-bikes, a more sustainable and cost-effective mobility option. Requiring a 15-mph maximum speed limit appears to be an attempt to appease those who oppose e-bikes, but would not have any real safety benefits. These devices are only involved in a tiny percent of crashes and it is common that the bicycle or e-scooter operator is the one who is injured, sometime even when the crash is with a pedestrian.

  3. The NYPD’s Quality of Life teams are only starting to address the issues that most concern residents such as micromobility devices being used on sidewalks, going the wrong way on streets, and running red lights, so managing micromobility devices (and hopefully motor vehicles) could finally be getting some attention. The NYPD’s stated focus on resolving problems and changing behaviors is an approach that has long been needed. Behavior changes that occur in response to these NYPD interventions –and data– should be assessed before deciding that e-devices warrant a lower speed limit than motor vehicles.

  4. If speed limits are enforced, motor vehicles may go up to 10 mph over a speed limit before they are considered speeding. Will cyclists get the same understanding and latitude?

  5. It seems unreasonable and unsafe to make cyclists go slower than the motor vehicles that they often need to travel amongst.

  6. I have questions about potential problems if (the wider) commercial cargo bikes operate in travel lanes at a top speed of 15-mph. The speed limit on roads below Canal Street is 20 mph, but drivers can get aggressive if they think that someone is causing them to go less than the speed limit when there is no congestion. My district’s historic street grid has many roads with only one traffic lane so legal passing on the roadbed is not possible if a commercial cargo bike operates in a travel lane.

  7. Having a lower speed limit for e-bikes is likely to slow the adoption of e-bikes to replace car trips, especially for commuting. Reducing vehicle miles traveled should be the DOT’s goal, so disincentives to adopting e-bikes would be counterproductive.

  No crash is acceptable, especially to those who are involved, but NYC’s streets and sidewalks are crowded so it’s unlikely that inter- and intra-modal conflicts can be eliminated. Improving street safety requires that motor vehicle, bicycle and e-scooter operators, as well as pedestrians learn to function on NYC’s multi-modal streets. Slower speeds and improved infrastructure are also important, but slowing some micromobility users while forcing them to operate amongst bigger, deadlier, and faster motor vehicles is not the answer.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 12:36pm

• Shivanshu Saha

  This really makes it unsafe for e-bikes to drive on roads where cars are going 2X faster, even if driving the minimum speed limit. Furthermore, I rely on e-bikes as my primary way of commute to and from the office. This makes it very hard to pedal uphill.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 12:46pm

• Adam Zeldin

  I do not support these restrictions on eBikes.

  eBikes are already regulated under existing NYC laws, here are the details: https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/ebikes-more-english.pdf. The most pressing problem isn’t the eBikes that follow the rules, it’s the illegal e-mopeds. Lumping them together is misleading and counterproductive.

  Instead of creating new limits, enforce the laws we already have. Penalize the bad actors (especially unregistered e-mopeds going 50+ MPH), not the responsible riders.

  And let’s talk about cars: they’re responsible for far more deaths and injuries every year. It took years to pass Sammy’s Law just to allow NYC to set a 20 MPH limit. We still can’t lower that beyond 20, even though cars are the most dangerous vehicles on our streets. That’s insane.

  If the city is serious about safety, the focus should be on looking at the evidence and reducing harm, and that means stronger enforcement for cars, not slower speeds for bikes.

  Let CitiBikes go 20 MPH. Don’t punish the wrong group.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 1:19pm

• Nick Tygesen

  With the failure to enforce existing laws, creating new rules will only create the opportunity for harassment of people who are simply trying to get around the city in a time and cost effective manner. Please properly enforce existing laws against running red lights, riding on sidewalks, riding the wrong way on streets, or riding on full electric powered bikes. This enforcement would be more well suited to solve the problem the city is trying to solve. Additionally, this new policy will create a safety hazard where bikes share the street with cars as they are not able to legally go the prevailing speed of traffic. This will result in unnecessary deaths which will be on the city’s hands. This policy is short sighted and I am opposed to it.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 1:55pm

• Jeury Sosa

  This would be a terrible decision and would put countless of New Yorkers who use a more sustainable and environmentally friendly mode of transportation. The vast majority of streets in New York City do not have designated bike lines forcing bikers to ride along side of traffic. How are bikers who are already vulnerable meant to keep up and have the ability to safely move out of harms way from the countless reckless and law breaking drivers this city possess.

  Comment added June 24, 2025 11:00pm

• Amber DaSilva

  Much of New York City lacks full, protected bike lanes. Without such protection, cyclists are forced to interact with motor vehicle traffic — an effort made far riskier by such a vast difference in speed limits. Differences in travel speed have been shown to increase the risk of accidents (https://www.ooida.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/18-Differential-Speed-Limits-Make-Roads-Less-Safe.pdf), and that’s just between motor vehicles. Forcing cyclists, already exposed to the surrounding world, to travel at slower speeds than the cars that are allowed to whip by them only makes cycling more dangerous.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 1:00am

• CereBel Legal Intelligence

  Summary of public comments as of June 25, 2025 at 1:30 PM:

  1. Enforceability & Legal Authority

  Without license-plates, registration or a clear definition of “pedal-assist commercial bicycle,” the 15 mph cap is unenforceable.

  No penalties are specified for violators—making it “meaningless on paper.”

  State law (NY VTL 1642(26)) prohibits a citywide limit below 20 mph unless enacted as a local law—this rule isn’t one.

  2. Disproportionate Focus on E-bikes vs. Motor Vehicles

  E-bikes account for a tiny fraction of injuries compared to cars, trucks and mopeds, which routinely speed, run lights, double-park, etc., with little enforcement.

  Targeting the lowest-harm group while ignoring far more dangerous vehicles is unfair and “political theater.”

  3. Safety Risks from Differential Speeds

  Forcing e-bikes to go slower than unpowered bikes (and far slower than cars) increases speed differentials in mixed traffic—heightening crash risk.

  Slower maximum speeds may push riders onto sidewalks or into unsafe passing situations.

  Studies show greater speed differentials between vehicles lead to more severe collisions.

  4. Impact on Riders & Commuting Efficiency

  Longer trips: even a 3 mph reduction adds minutes to each ride, making CitiBikes less viable.

  Disproportionately burdens older, smaller or less-fit riders by increasing fatigue and commute time.

  May discourage sustainable transport, pushing people back into cars.

  5. Infrastructure & Enforcement Priorities

  Calls for more protected bike lanes, not blanket speed throttles.

  Suggest geofencing varied speed zones (e.g. higher limits on separated-lane bridges).

  Advocate redirecting NYPD resources to enforce existing laws (red-light running, sidewalk riding, reckless driving).

  Recommend adjusting delivery pay structures to incentivize safer riding.

  6. Accountability & Registration (Priscilla’s Law)

  Mandate visible ID markings, registration and plate numbers for all e-micromobility devices so violators can be held to account.

  Without this, delivery platforms and CitiBike operators face no real accountability.

  7. Alternative Policy Proposals

  Lower the citywide speed limit for all vehicles to 20 mph (via Sammy’s Law) instead of singling out e-bikes.

  Enforce existing traffic laws on cars, trucks and illegal mopeds rather than create new e-bike-specific rules.

  Target high-risk behaviors (e.g. reckless operation, underage riding) with focused enforcement and education.

  *1*. Regulatory Consistency & Broader Legal Concerns

  Regulating e-bikes based on energy source may violate federal energy law (EPCA).

  Rule language misstates state law (mixing up class 1/2 vs. class 3 e-bike speed caps), suggesting sloppy, rushed drafting.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 1:41pm

• Nathan Stanton

  The proposed rule is unnecessary and should be rescinded. ebikes are not dangerous and we should be encouraging their use not adding unnecessarily low speed limits. There should be a war on cars in NYC not bikes.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 1:57pm

• Helmut Carter

  I do not e-bike, but I oppose the proposed change nonetheless. New Yorkers use bikes of all kinds because they’re a fast, healthy, efficient, and enjoyable way to get where we need to go. Unnecessarily (and capriciously) slowing down e-bikes would only serve to decrease adoption of bikes by everyday New Yorkers, at a time when the city’s bike modeshare is higher than ever. You don’t even have to bike to benefit from increased biking. Safer streets, cleaner air, and less congestion are benefits everyone can enjoy. Regardless of how people feel, the biggest threat in our streets are the cars. Until cars are universally speed-limited, I don’t see the sense in doing it to e-bikes.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 2:03pm

• Gregory Chase

  If the purpose of the proposed rule is to apply consistent standards and to mitigate the safety risks posed by heavier vehicles—presumably due to the greater force of impact in collisions and increased braking distances—then limiting the rule to commercial pedal-assist bikes is both arbitrary and inconsistent.

  First, the added weight of the motor and battery in Citi Bike’s pedal-assist bicycles is marginal compared to the variation in total weight caused by differences in rider body mass and carried cargo, which can vary by well over 100 pounds. Second, if weight is the relevant safety factor, then private e-bikes and even some traditional bikes with heavy riders or loads may pose similar or greater risks than a lightly loaded commercial pedal-assist bike.

  A consistent and rational standard would consider total weight and actual operating conditions—not vehicle class or ownership status—as the basis for regulation on stated grounds. This rule fails that test and will likely be challenged in court as being arbitrary.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 2:04pm

• Tracy

  I’m an avid bike rider, nyc native, and parent. I use citibike to ride around the city all the time, multiple times a day. My kiddo rides her bike with us on weekends, along and over to the west side highway. Bike access has changed how people move around the city. More bikes and especially more e-bikes remove cars from our streets and cause less crowding on our subways, buses, etc. I will 100% take an ebike instead of a cab because it’s faster. Reducing the speed limit to 15mph makes this not always the case and punishes cyclists when cars can go 25-35MPH. If you want to slow down e-bikes, slow down cars. Cars kill people at high speed, it is very rare for somenoe to get hit with a bike a die. This is a bad move and really will send nyc backwards in our transit and bike forward approach.

  Comment attachment
  2011PedestrianRiskVsSpeedReport.pdf

  Comment added June 25, 2025 2:28pm

• N. Anderson

  True leadership requires making tough decisions. DOT is caving to a public moral panic around e-bikes by considering this change, rather than relying on data and case studies of other cities (such as Paris). If the city were proposing a 15mph limit on motor vehicles as well – which cause the overwhelming majority of traffic deaths and injuries – then I might be in favor. As it stands I oppose this rule change.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 2:32pm

• Mohamed

  Thank you for safety

  Comment added June 25, 2025 2:53pm

• SAMUEL LEIKEN

  My e-bike has replaced my car, which I sold. I ride a great deal in Brooklyn and Manhattan. In the last five years I have NEVER had a problem with a speeding e-bike, so I believe this regulation is a waste of time. If you are truly concerned about the safety of e-bike riders, focus on ticketing and towing the countless cars and trucks who park or double park in the bike lanes forcing riders to swerve into traffic to get around the blockage. This is a real and ongoing danger to riders, cars, and pedestrians.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 3:36pm

• Leo Gallagher

  I am opposed to the speed limit for e bikes. We need more separated bike lanes from pedestrian traffic, not criminalization of those whose transportation method is actually the most sustainable. We need to embrace biking more to combat climate change

  Comment added June 25, 2025 3:49pm

• Sam Frommer

  I oppose this rule change.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 4:03pm

• Thomas Callahan

  I do not support this rule change to 15 mph. I use my e-scooter and Citi bike to get around the city, and this rule will make my life so much harder, it is unsafe especially when you are expected to be riding in car lanes in most of the city being able to not achieve speeds that cars can easily get to will create dangerous situations.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 4:51pm

• Maria Falgoust

  No unfair bike laws! No special speed limit for bikes!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:13pm

• Matthew Malina

  Fines not crimes

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:17pm

• Dan Miller

  I use bikes to commute and to get around the city more generally, and a 15-mph limit is deeply ridiculous and impractical. The 15-mph cap on Citibikes has already made me less safe, as I have to slowly share streets with cars that have a limit of 25mph (and can exceed that limit by 11mph without punishment from speed cameras). I urge DoT to reject this pointless and harmful rule.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:18pm

• Justin Randel

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:19pm

• Elido De leon

  This is rhe Democratic party. They do whatever they want.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:20pm

• Kenneth Lay

  I am completely opposed to efforts to reduce e-bike speed limits, unless such efforts are accompanied by a citywide reduction in car and truck speed limits as well. Over 99.9% of pedestrian injuries in NYC this year have been caused by cars and trucks – it is outrageous that DOT would declare 20lb e-bikes more of a threat than 4000lb cars going at least 10mph faster, and then act to reduce e-bike speed limits while doing nothing about motor vehicles.

  This rule is obviously not not safety. A five year old could see that. It is an effort by this administration to discriminate against those who choose to bike to get around.

  Again, I support a citywide reduction in e-bike speed limits only if such a rule is accompanied by a similar citywide reduction in car speed limits (to 20 mph or below). Otherwise, a hard no to this absurdly discriminatory rule.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:20pm

• Ross Levin

  I am writing to oppose the 15 mph limit on e-bikes. Safety on our streets comes from better street design that gives bikes and e-bikes a separate space, removed from both pedestrians and cars. This speed limit will not make people or streets safer.

  This speed limit hurts delivery workers, who are under immense pressure to make quick deliveries. It also hurts commuters, who use e-bikes to go farther distances faster than they could on a regular bike. I regularly commute by e-bike, and I see hundreds of people safely using e-bikes, even at speeds faster than 15 mph.

  Most pedestrian injuries in New York come from cars. I understand the concern about e-bikes, because they are new and unfamiliar, but we should prioritize making streets safer from cars, rather than this ineffective attempt at limiting e-bikes. We should instead be encouraging environmentally friendly transit options like e-bikes. This speed limit will do nothing to make streets safer, but it will make life more difficult for working people, including commuters and delivery workers.

  Please reject this proposed speed limit on e-bikes.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:21pm

• Marc Weinstein

  I’m an avid NYC biker, and do think 15mph is fast enough considering the instant acceleration e-bikes and scooter attain. License and enforcement is necessary.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:22pm

• Pierce Wezenaar

  “I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  “Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  “Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  “To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  “I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!”

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:22pm

• anthony Nicolau

  Biking is not a crime. I do not support this rule change to 15 mph No special speed limit for bikes.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:23pm

• Janet Liff

  Dear DOT, proposing different speeds for bikes and cars in the roadway is beyond ridiculous and basically nonsensical. Why should a driver be allowed to go 35 mph while a bike, in the same space, can only go 15? It’s just bazaar, not to say dangerous for the person on a bike. If you want to lower speeds in the roadway, set a 20 mph speed limit for everyone. Thank you,

  Sincerely,
  Janet Liff

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:25pm

• Thomas T

  I oppose this change.

  The vast majority of injuries and deaths are caused by cars and trucks. The city should focus resources on enforcing existing traffic laws.

  As a Brooklyn-based cyclist and pedestrian, on a daily basis I see vehicles run red lights, block intersections, double park, fail to yield when turning through crosswalks, etc.

  We do need to improve the safety of delivery bikes, but the enforcement needs to be against the delivery apps that are forcing their cyclists to meet unreasonable delivery times due to low pay. We need the city to meet the existing commitments for more bike lanes so that cyclists don’t use the sidewalk or go the wrong way.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:25pm

• Eric Gabriel Lehman

  “I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  “Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  “Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  “To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  “I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:27pm

• LOIC VIENNE

  I strongly oppose this legislation. I am an avid biker in NYC – both Citibike and regular bike and setting this limit seems to be the wrong priority. There so many more car/truck accident and fatalities all around NYC that the priority should be to reducing car speed; and increasing bike lanes. While I agree some e-bikes (especially delivery) seems to be way over that speed limit and can be dangerous (for pedestrian and other bike lane users). I think 20mph is a reasonable limit. Thank you

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:27pm

• Evan Marks

  “I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  “Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  “Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  “To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  “I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!”

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:30pm

• Maria Boustead

  This policy change — which applies only to people on e-bikes — is illogical. You can be arrested for pedaling faster than 15 mph on a 30-pound bike that doesn’t have a speedometer, yet someone behind the wheel of a two-ton truck can go 25 mph. Shouldn’t it be the other way around, since cars and trucks can do so much more damage and are responsible for the majority of the injuries and deaths on our street?

  I started riding an e-bike in 2021 when I was going through treatment for breast cancer. It helped me get the exercise I needed to stay strong, and being able to bike through the city’s parks made me feel joy at a particularly difficult time.

  I currently commute from Washington Heights to Midtown and back on my e-bike. I’m so thankful for the steps the city has made to make it safer, and thus more enjoyable, to bike in the city.

  This proposed rule goes in the other direction. It feels simply mean-spirited, intended to discourage people from cycling, thus making streets less safe for everyone — while exposing thousands of New Yorkers to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation just for riding a bike.

  Say NO to unfair bike laws and NO to special speed limit for bikes!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:31pm

• David Young

  “I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  “Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  “Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  “To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  “I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!”

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:31pm

• Gregory V Esteve

  I oppose the rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling; we do need the City to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Thank you!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:31pm

• Deborah Wolk

  why can cars go any speed (20, 25 … but usually more like 30mph) and bikes will have to have a limit. I’m sure this is a way for police to stop immigrants and people of color and slam them with criminal charges?

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:31pm

• Andrew Moore

  I strongly oppose the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk, and which the Adams administration has managed to curtail EVEN FURTHER.

  We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:33pm

• Alexander Apter

  This is a ridiculous and reactionary law that ignores NYPDs data on where the risk to pedestrians lies: 99.6% of all pedestrian injuries are from from cars and trucks—not bikes.

  Focus attention and resources on the real issues. If you want to limit all vehicles to 15mph and include bikes, fine by me!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:33pm

• Mark Poons

  Why are E bikes being slowed down when cars and trucks are not? Many more people are injured by automobiles then bikes. Bikes are also beter for the environment and people’s health and well being. Slow down cars and truck and leave bicycles alone. Thank you.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:34pm

• Tammy Meltzer

  I am strongly support to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. All moving vehicles that travel at higher speeds should not be allowed on our sidewalks. They should be in the road and follow the regular traffic rules.

  There is no current way to track bicycle and people crashes or interactions and the NYPD often will not take a report even if the pedestrian is injured. This is a step towards being able to apply traffic rules to all.

  At the same time, we want to encourage biking, which research shows makes streets more active and can enhance safety for all users. It is concerning how the rules will be applied versus speeding tickets for cars. However, this can be planned and fixed with registration of all E-bikes and rule making.

  Again I support this measure and hope it will be a way to start to reduce the speed limits for all types of vehicles on the road under Sammy’s Law.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:34pm

• Megan Taylor

  I strongly oppose the proposed rule to impose a 15 MPH speed limit on e-bikes, e-scooters, and pedal-assist commercial bicycles.

  This rule unfairly targets working-class New Yorkers—particularly delivery workers, immigrants, and commuters—who rely on these vehicles every day. E-bikes are a climate-friendly, congestion-reducing form of transportation, yet this rule treats their riders more harshly than drivers of multi-ton SUVs who regularly exceed 30 MPH citywide.

  The rule is dangerous, not because it slows bikes down, but because it opens the door to over-policing and criminalization. Delivery workers—who already face harassment, injury, and theft—could now be stopped, fined, arrested, or worse, for exceeding a speed most e-bikes are built to reach safely. Many of these workers are immigrants, meaning they risk deportation for a so-called “crime” that wouldn’t apply to car drivers going nearly twice as fast.

  This is not a meaningful street safety policy. It’s a distraction. The data is clear: Cars and trucks are the leading cause of injury and death on New York City streets. In 2023, motor vehicles killed over 100 pedestrians. E-bikes accounted for a tiny fraction of crashes and an even smaller share of fatalities.

  If the City truly wants to protect lives and make streets safer, it should:

  Pass Sammy’s Law and reduce the citywide speed limit to 20 MPH

  Expand protected bike lanes and create safe infrastructure for micromobility

  Regulate delivery apps and support training for workers

  Invest in education, not criminalization

  Do not move forward with this regressive, unjust, and ineffective rule. We need policies that support a fair, safe, and sustainable transportation future—not ones that punish people for riding bikes.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:39pm

• Daniel Boer

  Anyone who has ever ridden a bike or motorcycle – or piloted any other type of vulnerable vehicle – knows that SPEED DIFFERENTIAL is one of the most dangerous components of sharing the road with motor vehicles. Capping e-Bikes at this speed effectively makes the traffic around them more dangerous, and disproportionately punishes a very specific and deliberate community of delivery riders while failing to make bike lanes any safer for those pedaling on their own.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:40pm

• Paul Henri Doble

  Limiting the speed of ebikes in the name of safety is preposterous. Everyone going slower can make the city safer. But as any city planner worth their degree will tell you, infrastructure is what really drives safety, not fines. All this new law will do is disproportionately police low income workers of color while the rich get to incur literally hundreds of speeding tickets a year driving far deadlier cars. Shame on Commissioner Tisch for this blantantly classist and racist campaign. It’s just another distraction from the real problem under her watch: the bloated budget and continuing abuse of power by the NYPD.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:40pm

• Michael Blaise Backer

  I’m a New Yorker, for 25 years now, officially half of my life. I’m mostly a pedestrian. But I’m also a driver, a cyclist, a Citi-biker, an E-biker, and a stroller pusher.

  I completely understand where this rule and the sentiment behind it is coming from. I’ve had my own occasional frustration with cyclists and e-bikers when being a pedestrian or stroller pusher, and empathize with the reflexive push to regulate in a punitive manner. But the reality is that our city’s infrastructure has not kept up with the need around our changing mobility patterns and preferred modes of transportation. It needs to, and quickly. Because placing non-sensible, punitive, inequitable, and incredibly difficult to enforce speed limits on those riding any form of bicycle of scooter is not the answer. Building the necessary infrastructure to help New Yorkers remain safe whatever mode of transportation they use should be the real priority.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:40pm

• Ehren Gresehover

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!”

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:41pm

• Scott St. Marie

  This is a ridiculous proposal, very few ebikes have speeds compatible with the 15 mph limit–so it’s effectively a ban on ebikes. Instead, how about starting to issue criminal summonses for running red lights? That might actually save some lives, while generating $$ for the City.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:41pm

• Karl Allen

  Biking is not a crime! Cars and reckless drivers are the real scourge on our streets. The attack on e-bikes and other cyclists is thinly veiled racism and fear-mongering by a Mayor in the pocket of Tr*mp. He’s willing to throw the most vulnerable amongst his constituents under the bus to win an election he knows he’s going to lose. This speed limit law is a sham and so are the criminal summonses being issued

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:41pm

• Jamilah Elder

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  This policy change — which applies only to people on e-bikes — is dangerous and illogical. You can be arrested for pedaling faster than 15 mph on a 30-pound bike that doesn’t have a speedometer, while someone behind the wheel of a two-ton truck speeding 35 mph without even a traffic ticket.

  Criminalizing biking won’t make streets safer. It will discourage people from cycling, making streets less safe for everyone — while exposing thousands of New Yorkers to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation just for riding a bike.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:42pm

• John Wyeth

  The decision of Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner Tisch to issue criminal summonses to cyclists for minor infractions – as opposed to traffic tickets – is a bizarre double standard for bikes versus motor vehicles, which are responsible for exponentially more pedestrian fatalities than bikes. Especially at this incredibly dangerous moment of aggressive (and often extra-judicial) immigration enforcement, this is an escalation NYC cannot afford. New Yorkers should be encouraged to utilize the city’s bike lanes, especially now that streets are less congested with motor vehicles and there are many bike lanes available.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:43pm

• Stephan Cotton

  As someone who is out on the street a lot I can attest to the fact that e-bikes are more dangerous than cars in Manhattan. Crossing Second Avenue’s bike lane is one of the most dangerous things a pedestrian can do.

  And e-bikes on sidewalks is equally dangerous.

  Please continue proposing and enforcing laws and regulations protecting us from these renegade cyclists.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:44pm

• Rebecca Dawn Neckritz

  No unfair bike laws! Adam’s half baked idea would expose delivery workers, commuters, and anyone who bikes to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation — all for simply riding a bike.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:44pm

• George Hagstrom

  Dear DOT,

  I am writing to express strong opposition to the proposed 15mph e-bike speed limit. I use every type of transportation to get around the city, including walking, driving, cycling, and riding the subways and busses. The rule to limit e-bikes to 15 mph doesn’t make sense in the context of a city where much heavier and statistically much more dangerous vehicles travel at much higher speeds. According to the data, e-bikes and bicycles in general are approximately 100 times safer than motor vehicles, and cause very few injuries and fatalities in the city. Despite this fact, there has been an illogical focus and obsession with these vehicles, probably because they are relatively new, because they are used by immigrants who have become a top target of the administration, and because politicians and commentators confuse categories, mixing up e-bikes with mopeds and electric motorcycles which are capable of substantially higher speeds.

  A significant challenge that cyclists face when navigating the city by bike is the speed differential between bicycles and motor vehicles, the later of which often exceed the 25 or 30 mph speed limit. Although the city is developing a strong network of bike lanes which enable cyclists to avoid intermingling with cars, this network is still limited in extent to only a minority of the city. Elsewhere in the city we have to ride in traffic. The arrival of the white e-citibikes, significantly enhanced safety on regular streets (at least in my perspective as both a user and a driver). Although the speed difference may seem slight in absolute terms, in relative terms they can reduce a 10mph speed differential in half or more. This enables cyclists to keep up with traffic, reducing the number of passes, minimizing road rage and driver frustration which can become dangerous to cyclists and drivers alike.

  Limiting the speed to 15mph (which is slower than than some people can jog a mile, and much slower than the speed that “exercise” cyclists generally ride) seems like an overreach that makes transportation in the city worse in every way. I can’t help but think that this rule has been partially put in place to help increase arrests of delivery cyclists. This isn’t a way to run a transportation system. It is interesting to me that we never discuss limiting the speed of motor vehicles, which are substantially more deadly, but instead talk about it for bicycles. I would instead propose requiring cyclists to obey whatever the speed limit is for motor vehicles on local roads.

  Thank you,
  Sincerely,
  George Hagstrom

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:46pm

• Carol Cotton

  The more you regulate e-bikes, the safer pedestrians and rest of NY will be

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:48pm

• Ryan Garrett

  Are you limiting cars to 15 mph? Why not? Cars kill, bikes do not.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:49pm

• Joe Bway

  Since many cyclists do not act responsibly or respectfully, sadly rules and laws like this one are necessary to prevent further injuries of children, seniors, those with visual and physical impairments or limitations, and other pedestrians, caused by speeding ebikes and escooters. It would be beneficial if funding were also provided for enforcement of this and other pedestrian-protection rules and laws.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:49pm

• james nyoraku schlefer

  Yes SOME e-bike users do ride dangerously and they should be stopped. BUT a blanket 15-mile/hour rule is a bad idea. And turning ordinary bike riders into criminals for minor traffic infractions is a dumb idea. There is very little car violation enforcement. Bikes are easier to catch. Is that why this is happening? It’s backwards. Unsafe drivers can cause death and major physical damage. Not so the occasional bad bicyclist.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:50pm

• R Micken

  Speeding should be a traffic violation rather than a criminal conviction. There are too many excuses to arrest vulnerable people now- many who deliver on e-bikes. It’s an over-reaction and will likely cause harm and expense. Enforcing criminal penalties for cars harming pedestrians and people on bikes would be a more sane approach. I’m for banning e-bikes from the city altogether.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:54pm

• Hunter Newman

  i really dislike this speed limit for e-bikes and want it back the way it was immediately please. it now costs more to get around to places where public transit is annoying (astoria to bushwick in my case).

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:56pm

• Michael Replogle

  I am former Deputy Commissioner for Policy, New York City Department of Transportation, 2015-21. I strongly oppose the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is an ill-considered idea to improve safety which will be counterproductive. It is also likely to put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause very few crashes and almost no fatalities. On the other hand, people in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket. While speed cameras and other Vision Zero initiatives I helped NYC advance as Deputy Transportation Commissioner have improved traffic safety, this proposed 15-mph bike speed limit rule is likely to undermine cycling and safety.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for every vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  As a former NYC DOT official charged with traffic safety improvements, I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:56pm

• W Chan

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical, inequitable and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities.

  People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 5:57pm

• Penny Rosen

  I think there should be a law with speed limits – 15 mph for ebikes. They are dangerous. I have fear of riding my bike or crossing the street. Fears I’ve never had before.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:01pm

• Summit Hainey

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:03pm

• Gary Venter

  Riders on good bikes easily go 20 mph or faster. Citibike e-bikes already have an internal max of about 23 mph and you have to work pretty hard to get to it. On the Hudson River Greenway these bibes are routinely passed by good bikers on their skinny bikes. A speed limit of 25 mph for all bikers might make sense.
  There is a real problem with the pure electric bikes that don’t require pedaling. They are more like motorcycles and can be a real danger. The 25 mph speed limit would help for those.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:03pm

• Erik Olsen

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:07pm

• Jeffrey Dworkin

  Before NYC creates a new law to restrict all e-bikes to 15mph, we first need to make a clear distinction between the two main types of e-bikes:

  Throttle-Operated E-Bikes – These can be powered without pedaling and are often used more like lightweight scooters.

  Pedal-Assist E-Bikes (Pedelecs) – These require the rider to pedal to engage the motor, resulting in a more controlled, human-powered riding experience.

  Treating all e-bikes the same overlooks important differences in how they function, how fast they accelerate, and how much control the rider has.

  NYC has one of the best bike infrastructure networks in the United States, and that’s largely because more New Yorkers are commuting by bike now than ever before. E-bikes have played a critical role in expanding access to cycling for more people — including delivery workers, seniors, and daily commuters — making biking a practical, eco-friendly transportation option.

  Moreover, it’s important to recognize that many road cyclists on racing-specific bikes can easily exceed 20mph. These bikes are lightweight, built for speed, and often used on the same bike lanes and paths as e-bikes. Enforcing a blanket 15mph limit only on e-bikes — while road cyclists continue to travel faster — would create inconsistencies and raise questions about fairness and enforceability.

  Instead of a flat 15mph speed cap, NYC should adopt a more nuanced approach:

  Context-based speed limits (e.g., 15mph on shared-use paths and congested areas, higher limits on protected bike lanes and open roads).

  Clear signage and targeted enforcement in high-risk zones.

  Education campaigns to promote safe riding and clarify the differences between e-bike types.

  Classification stickers or lightweight registration to aid enforcement and data collection.

  A smart, balanced policy will promote safety while supporting the growth of cycling in NYC — not hinder it.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:08pm

• Elizabeth A Horwitz

  This policy change — which applies only to people on e-bikes — is dangerous and illogical. You can be arrested for pedaling faster than 15 mph on a 30-pound bike that doesn’t have a speedometer, while someone behind the wheel of a two-ton truck speeding 35 mph without even a traffic ticket.

  Criminalizing biking won’t make streets safer. It will discourage people from cycling, making streets less safe for everyone — while exposing thousands of New Yorkers to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation just for riding a bike. Tell NYC DOT: No unfair bike laws! No special speed limit for bikes!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:08pm

• Joe Westcott

  This new speed limit is a ludicrously bad idea. Why can cars and trucks go nearly the double the speed and kill people because they weigh tons, while some guy on an ebike is treated like a menace and capped at a speed that is unsafe for avoiding reckless drivers? This things reeks of political pandering and it’s a completely unsafe, completely bad idea for New Yorkers who just want to live their life and ride a bicycle.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:12pm

• felix sheng

  These rules make no sense, why are we spending time criminalizing bicycles – creating whole new criminal laws to make it harder to cycle. Cars routinely speed, run lights, speed through intersections, double park causing dangerous traffic flows and hit and kill people daily. Yet, no new laws or attempts to criminalize currently illegal car activity are up for discussion. We should focus our attention on things that will actually make NYC safer to be in and improve quality of life.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:13pm

• Tyler Miller

  There are 15,000 pedestrians struck by vehicles every year in NYC.
  There are <250 pedestrians struck by ebikes each year in NYC.

  The force of being struck by a car vs an ebike traveling at 30mph is 100x different. If we want to reduce traffic injuries, we should focus on cars, not ebikes.

  Biking is a criticial way for new yorkers to navigate the city.

  It is the cheapest way for folks to travel and requires the city the least amount of work to maintain, freeing the budget from expanding middle transit options and focus on important transit infra like the subway.

  our goal should be to maximize the amount of people in the city biking for pleasure, work, transportation, anything.

  any laws that limit biking speeds will reduce the mobility of citizens in the city.

  We should pursue different legislation: Instead of setting speed limits we should invest in bike-only lanes to create room for more bikers.

  if we are worried about speeding in the city we should invest in fully automated speed ticketing with increasing fines for repeat offenders, but this should apply to ALL vehicles.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:22pm

• James

  This doesn’t make sense. There isn’t a 15mph limit on cars which are SO much more dangerous. I am opposed to this measure.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:28pm

• Dave Johnson

  There is no reason to put a speed limit on any type of bike. The danger on the streets is coming from six-ton vehicles that are allowed to terrorize pedestrians. Please get the priotories straight. Bikes are not the problem.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:30pm

• jon glazer

  I’m against the proposed new 15mph speed limit. I wish the current restrictions were simply enforced. There are all types of electric and gas 2 wheeled (sometimes even just one wheel) that we already have laws about that are not enforced in any way. I see these electric and gas dirt bikes zooming around and NYC has clear laws that regulate their use but they are rarely enforced. Please just enforce the rules that already exist.

  Thank you

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:32pm

• Sofia Barandiaran

  I am writing to urge you to reject the proposed rule introducing a 15-mph speed limit for e-bikes, which would make our streets more dangerous and confusing for all road users. We have speed limits for a reason: these are the speeds that DOT has determined to be safe for each street or road in the city. These speed limits should apply equally to all road users. To arbitrarily impose a lower speed limit for e-micromobility is dangerous and unprecedented. Under the proposed rule, e-bikers will be forced to ride slower than cars on a given road, which will encourage unsafe passing, cause frustration and road rage among drivers, and ultimately lead to more crashes, injuries, and deaths.

  If this rule is imposed, e-bikers will be unjustly confused and misled by posted speed limit signs of 20 or 25 mph. To give somebody a fine–or worse, a court summons, as the City now arbitrarily prefers to do–for simply following posted road signs is unjust, ridiculous, and irresponsible.

  To add insult to injury, this rule will do nothing to address the actual concerns that many New Yorkers have about e-bikes: sidewalk riding, wrong-way riding, failure to yield to pedestrians, fire hazards from illegal batteries, etc. All of these behaviors are already illegal – the city must create regulations, practices, and incentives to equitably increase compliance with these laws.

  The unintended consequence of this rule will ultimately be to incentivize more e-bikers to switch to gas mopeds, which I can assure you no one on either side of this debate wants.

  This proposed rule betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of traffic safety and a total disregard for fairness or logic. If the City truly wishes to make streets safer by slowing down vehicles, it should lower the citywide speed limit for all vehicles and/or expand Neighborhood Slow Zones.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 6:39pm

• Brian C. Stevens

  This rule change would not make any sense if it was implemented throughout NYC on all roads. In a share the road situation, it would be very dangerous for cyclists to be restricted to lower speeds than automobiles and trucks and would likely lead to an increase in crashes. It might make sense to restrict the speed of cyclists in protected bike lanes only as they are narrower and higher speeds may pose more of a risk. It’s obvious to say that the real risk has always been motor vehicles and trucks in terms of pedestrian and cyclist safety. This rule change proposal seems to be based on raw politics and not statistical evidence. Other steps can be taken to address issues with e bikes, such as better enforcement of existing laws restricting throttle bikes.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 7:04pm

• Joseph W Russo

  Why on earth would we limit bikes to 15 miles an hour when cars are travelling at twice that speed and far more dangerous. Instead of harmful regulation, let’s focus on enforcing safe driving rules on cars, trucks, and busses to keep our streets safer

  Comment added June 25, 2025 7:06pm

• Neil Bleifeld

  What’s with the unfair, unequal targeting of bikers?

  Comment added June 25, 2025 7:14pm

• William O Folchi

  I am a 73 year old male who is an avid bike rider. I strongly support a speed limit on e bikes and the imposition of penalties on violators.

  I have biked in the city for over 65 years and the e-bikes and moped delivery drivers have been the extremely dangerous and disruptive the last few years.

  They do not obey traffic signals, ride on sidewalks, fail to follow bike etiquette and travel had high speeds on bike lanes.

  The protected bike lane on 2nd Avenue is of no use to a recreational cyclist. It is dominated by the likes of Door Dash drivers who refuse to ovbey simple rules of the lane.

  The city must take a strong stand and return the bike lanes to cyclists, not ebije and moored delivery drivers!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 7:20pm

• Frances

  It shouldn’t be against the law to an e-bike or any bike for that matter.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 7:20pm

• Amy

  Riding a bike of any kind isn’t a.crime. Nor should it become one.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 7:21pm

• Agassi N

  We have different groups fighting for their agenda. More powerful group often wins. This doesn’t at all mean improvements are made for general public. We need to design systems while considering various interests and outcomes, and deepdive into best practices from other cities. Driving has to get better, not slower. Increase skill requirement for passing driving test. Stop charging bikers hundreds of dollars-most can’t afford it, and they pose lesser danger.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 7:36pm

• Laura Mead

  This proposed rule is too absurd to be proposed in good faith. This illogical policy seems more like a Trump-appeasing maneuver to arrest undocumented deliveristas than a thoughtful and data-driven rule. Cars are the mode of transportation most likely to kill and injure pedestrians and bikers, and this rule continues to demonize a less politically powerful contingent of New Yorkers (bikers) rather than addressing the real dangers on our streets.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 7:51pm

• Eric Baker

  As a parent who e-bikes with young children every day, I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 8:03pm

• Laura Fishman

  It doesn’t make sense to have a lower speed limit for e-bikes than for automobiles. E-bikes may not ride on the sidewalk, they must ride in the road with cars. It is not safe to force them to go a different speed than cars. It’s important to allow them to travel at the speed of traffic. Additionally multi-ton vehicles are the much greater threat to public safety – why would we allow them to go faster than e-bikes? All traffic, bicycles and automobiles, should be required to obey a reduced speed limit of 20 mph while on surface streets within city limits. That would be a change I could get behind.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 8:16pm

• Jeremiah Glazer

  This is idiotic; a waste of time, money, and resources. Doesn’t the city have more important things to focus on? Modernizing public transit, affordable housing, cost of living, education, health care, immigration? This is going to deter people from riding their bikes which eases public transit and roadway congestion, and promotes health. You should be building e-bike lanes along with more bike lanes to ENCOURAGE MORE riding, not criminalizing riders.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 8:16pm

• Leslie H Hanson Sr

  This proposed law is grossly unfair to bike riders and should not be allowed to go forward.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 8:21pm

• Clair Weatherby

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 25 or 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 8:30pm

• Klaus Lessnau MD FCCP

  As a doctor with thousands of patients I do recommend walking and bicycling as treatment to stay healthy.

  I support a limit of 20 miles/hour for bicycles, and not 15, as is obvious for people who use their bicycle daily.

  More than 98% of all accidents are caused by cars and not with bicycles. Therefore we have to focus on cars and trucks and speed cameras and police enforcement. I have more than enough patients who had life-altering events with car accidents.

  I strongly support to restrict dangerous car movements. And I do support healthy bicycling up to 20 miles/hour.

  Respectfully,

  K. Lessnau MD FCCP
  SuperDoctor, Best doctor
  Lenox Hill Hospital

  Comment added June 25, 2025 8:50pm

• Nancy Lee

  A speed limit of 15 mph on a BICYCLE is completely unreasonable considering that drivers of cars are regularly speeding with no consequences, running past stop signs, and illegally parking wherever they want. The nuisance in this city are the poor drivers that pressure pedestrians and cyclists into dangerous conditions all for the sake of their own convenience. New York City could learn so much from the infrastructure of modernizing cities like Barcelona in creating livable spaces that are walkable and accessible because cars are limited. Cycling is one of the healthiest options for people and encourages a strong community. Speed restrictions on bicycles is unnecessary and asinine.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 9:12pm

• Lawrence C Vazac

  It’s not a war on bikes don’t want a criminal summons don’t break the traffic laws

  Comment added June 25, 2025 9:20pm

• Douglas Bradford Smith

  As a non-ebike rider in the city since the 1980s, I have to say that I would like ebikes to have a 15mph limit. Ebike riders especially delivery riders are too fast and often too reckless. They come up behind you and you don’t know they are there. I have had near collisions.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 9:53pm

• Monica Pascual

  As a pedestrian and cyclist I risk my life every day I am out on the streets of NYC, because drivers of motor vehicles constantly and recklessly disregard every traffic rule in the book. I have learned to expect drivers to NOT slow down on the curb, SPEED in order to run RED LIGHTS, advance their cars before their light changes and pedestrians are crossing the street, etc etc etc. I do NOT recall any instance in which I felt a bicycle or an e-bike could kill me, even when they’ve ride recklessly. A friend was hit by an e-bike while on her bike and was hurt but not seriously hurt. I know far too many people who have been seriously injured and killed by drivers of motor vehicles who disregarded traffic rules. If the mayor would seriously care about people’s safety he wouldn’t worry as much about bikes and e-bikes and would penalize instead drivers of motor vehicles

  Comment added June 25, 2025 9:55pm

• Yann Benetreau

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record.

  People on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  In addition, it is more dangerous for cyclists: the safest way to cycle when forced to ride in a lane shared with cars is to match the cars’ speed!

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 9:56pm

• V. Mahajan

  According to NYCDOT’s own data, in 2021, 123 people were struck by motor vehicles, while 2 were struck by bicycles. It is a mistake to limit the use of bicycles, by limiting their speed, discouraging their use compared to motor vehicles, when according to the data, they are much safer than cars, which continue to be able to operate at 40mph, when reducing the speed limit for motor vehicles directly reduces pedestrian fatalities by reducing the severity of crashes.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 10:01pm

• Tom Kurland

  As an initial matter, it is unfair and illogical to impose a speed limit–the violation of which can give rise to criminal liability–solely on e-bikes that does not apply to any other type of vehicle using the same roadway (or even any other type of bicycle).

  Indeed, a person pedaling faster than 15 mph on a 30-pound bike that doesn’t even have a speedometer can be arrested, while someone behind the wheel of a two-ton SUV speeding along at 35 mph might not even get a traffic ticket.

  Moreover, it is downright DANGEROUS. I ride an e-assist Citi bike to work every day in bike lanes from the UES to Midtown. Since the speed limit was imposed on those bikes, it has become incredibly hard to safely avoid cars and other bikes (even regular non-assisted bikes) at intersections, where I can no longer get up enough speed to keep pace with traffic. All users of our streets should have the same speed limit.

  If the City is concerned about reckless driving or danger to pedestrians, it should crack down on speeding cars and trucks. It should also crack down on RAMPANT ILLEGAL PARKING by delivery trucks (especially Amazon and Fresh Direct with erect miniature distribution centers in turn-only lanes up and down the avenues in my neighborhood each day) which constricts thoroughfares and crowds more bikes, cars, and pedestrians into limited roadway space.

  As others have put it–and I agree–criminalizing biking won’t make streets safer. It will discourage people from cycling, making streets less safe for everyone — while exposing thousands of New Yorkers to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation just for riding a bike.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 10:32pm

• Eleanor Forman

  Don’t make special rules against bikes to criminalize cycling. I am disabled and ride a recumbent tricycle. I could never reach 15 MPH, but I will be affected because when you discourage cycling, you make it less safe for me. The more bikes, the safer we all are.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 10:35pm

• Shawn F.

  I am vehemently opposed to the rule limiting e-bikes to 15 mph speeds. The sole purpose of this rule is to destroy our neighbors lives by entangling them in the legal system. It has no root in safety because if safety were actually the concern, we would be regulating cars and trucks foremost since they cause significantly more injuries. In fact, this will make us less safe by discouraging biking–the more people who bike, the fewer people who will be driving cars, the fewer people who will be killed by cars. DOT should instead be making biking (and everyone else on the road/sidewalk) safer with dedicated bike infrastructure and reducing car speeds. And why, if we actually want to reduce biker speeds, are we not regulating the companies who force workers into pressurized deadlines in the first place? This rule is totally backward-thinking, we have other tools to use that don’t force people into the backlogged legal system.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 11:00pm

• DONA OROZOVA

  This new regulation disproportionately affects some of the lowest paid workers in the city – the bike delivery group. Riding at 15 miles/hr is comparable to a casual human powered bike rider. This will directly affect the pay these workers bring home and this is unfair. Alternatively cars are responsible for majority of accidents in which pedestrians are injured. Injuries caused by e-bikes are a very miniscule single digit percentage. Additionally statistics in recent year point that this percentage has been on the decline. My understanding is that curbing motor vehicles (cars) speeds will bring higher benefits in making our city safer.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 11:03pm

• Charles Todd

  Before you lower the e-bike speed limit to 15 MPH, please lower the car/truck/suv speed limit to 20 MPH on every street in the city (with the power granted by Sammy’s Law.) Cars can currently go 35 MPH (25 MPH speed limit plus 10 MPH grace) and not even trigger a ticket from a speed camera. They weigh thousands of pounds. They kill vastly more pedestrians (last year cars/trucks/suvs killed 113 pedestrians vs 1 pedestrian killed by an e-bike).

  Also, please provide a protected bike lane on every street in the city where you plan to lower the e-bike speed limit. Otherwise, you are forcing e-bike riders to ride in the road at a slower speed that will encourage dangerous passing by drivers.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 11:07pm

• Klaus Lessnau MD FCCP

  After many traffic accidents with death and life-altering events, mostly by cars (>98%), it will be appropriate to limit speeds to 20 miles per hour, for bicycles, pedal assist bicycles, e-bikes, cars, trucks and sanitation trucks (they are speeding).

  As a SuperDoctor, Best doctor and practicing critical care physician at Lenox Hill Hospital, I have to disseminate information.

  Thank you for your consideration.

  K. Lessnau MD FCCP

  Comment added June 25, 2025 11:14pm

• Gabriel

  I strongly oppose the proposal to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we should not criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  No special speed limits for cyclists and no police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 25, 2025 11:32pm

• Mark Forman

  As a rider in NYC for 46 years this rule is a type of discrimination aimed at all those who ride bicycles.Motorists are the ones causing the greatest damage to pedestrians yet the blames is being misdirected to cyclists. Issue criminal summonses to motorists who endanger all other road users with their 2 ton vehicles. Why is this discrimination happening. It is political theater. Stop issuing criminal summonses for riding a bicycle in NYC.

  Comment added June 25, 2025 11:42pm

• Alexander M Schwarz

  I am a NYC resident and strongly opposed to the proposed bike laws. NYC needs to focus on motor vehicle safety, lowering speed limits and increasing enforcement for motor vehicle drivers, while not restricting bike riders, who are not a safety hazard. More than 99% of NYC road deaths are caused by motor vehicles. Street safety means motor vehicle safety, so that pedestrians and bike riders can travel without fear of harm. Thank you.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 12:40am

• Christopher Marrero

  This is insane people need to look both ways in bike lanes now. why make bike lanes for bikes and now u can only go 15 MPH on an Ebike that’s insane. NYC just wants to ticket take peoples money , we ditch the cars for less traffic. Now they wanna give more tickets.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 1:17am

• Jean-Luc Henraux

  Hello,

  I’m writing to express my opposition to the proposed rule establishing a speed limit for e-bikes.

  At its core, this law further entrenches an arbitrary double-standard that punishes cyclists while maintaining the rights of drivers to drive recklessly. Cyclists are subject to criminal penalties already – this law now explicitly limits their speed – for unsafe driving. Why aren’t drivers, whose actions are far more likely to result in a pedestrian or driver/passenger death, subject to the same criminal penalties?

  This proposal makes no sense to New Yorkers who value the economical and safety benefits of riding e-bikes.

  Drivers are the ones that should be punished severely for traffic violations. Unsafe driving causes hundreds of preventable deaths each year (https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/189-25/mayor-adams-traffic-deaths-reach-historic-low-during-first-quarter-2025-additional). Cyclists, in contrast, don’t kill anyone.

  Best,
  Jean-Luc

  Comment added June 26, 2025 4:01am

• Sam Bleiberg

  I am against a speed limit for e-bikes. Other forms of transportation including cars, non-motorized bikes, and even humans running are not limited to 15mph, so I think it is arbitrary and unnecessary that e-bikes would be.

  Since cars and trucks are the only vehicles that are capable of going over 100mph, I would be in favor of speed limiters on cars and trucks, since they weigh thousands of pounds and are especially dangerous when driven at high speeds.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 4:05am

• Luka Pusic

  Cars cause so many more accidents and fatalities than bikes. Criminalizing biking makes the roads more dangerous for everyone and continues to make this city less affordable.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 4:51am

• Aidan Harte

  This proposed rule change reflects a city administration with some wildly misaligned priorities. Rather than targeting an affordable, environmentally friendly travel option for New Yorkers, consider spending your time on things that will actually improve our lives. You could start with ensuring that New York is a safe city for pedestrians. Wake up!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 5:03am

• Michael Pusic

  The city permits motorcycles, cars, and other gas guzzling vehicles to travel more than 15 mph in densely populated urban areas. Cyclists often travel above that speed. Arbitrarily limiting the speed of e-mobility scooters to 15 mph will dissuade people from taking a form of transportation that reduces smog and is generally convenient. Risks to personal safety can be mitigated by less paternalistic measures, such as building bike/scooter lanes and requiring people use helmets.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 5:05am

• GY

  Stop targeted unfair bike laws that give Law Enforcement the power to harass and stop anyone on a bike! No unilateral speed limit for bikes! Reckless riding is the culprit. Enforce no riding on sidewalks and going the wrong way on one way streets. Make delivery company’s responsible for their employees. Do not impose “illogical” rules for responsible cyclists who commute and recreate safely.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 6:46am

• Mike

  This rule makes things more dangerous for pedestrians as e-bikes can no longer operate at speeds that allow for safe travel in car traffic lanes.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 7:00am

• Angus McCamy

  I commute to work every day, all year round and say No to a 15mph bike speed limit. Absolutely ridiculous.
  My average speed per a bike computer is 15mph.
  This mean I ride 18-20 mph on bike paths and if on a street with cars 20-26mph. I obey red lights, and stop signs which is why my average is only 15mph.
  City bike routinely go 18-20 mph.
  This is a waste of administrative efforts to make such a law, to enforce such a law, and for what outcome? Make some money on backs of cyclists of all kinds, tourists, delivery bikes, recreational cyclists, and the commuter cyclists? Or is this just a means to provide a reason to stop a person on a bike and force them into a situation that provokes a reaction to be escalated in arrest? This is wrong.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 7:35am

• Kara Jackson

  “Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 7:44am

• David Bender

  It’s a complicated issue and the solution is not slower ebikes. Generally speaking, rules of the road – traffic laws – should apply to everyone – drivers, bikers and pedestrians. The real issue is that there is no enforcement. Cars/trucks are allowed to speed. Bikers ride and pedestrians walk as if they’re outside the law. There’s lots of other things that can be done to help us all get around in this city, but obeying the rules of the road would solve many.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 7:45am

• Alyson Shotz

  Criminalizing biking won’t make streets safer. It will discourage people from cycling, making streets less safe for everyone — while exposing thousands of New Yorkers to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation just for riding a bike. Biking helps the environment and the health of people. Without it we would have much more pollution and many more people with health problems. Biking makes this city great! There should be no unfair bike laws! No special speed limit for bikes!This policy change — which applies only to people on e-bikes — is dangerous and illogical. You can be arrested for pedaling faster than 15 mph on a 30-pound bike that doesn’t have a speedometer, while someone behind the wheel of a two-ton truck speeding 35 mph doesnt even get a traffic ticket. I see people going through red lights in cars all the time and there are no consequences! Crack down on speeding cars and trucks not bikes!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 7:53am

• Ryan Overton

  I strongly oppose the 15mph e-bike speed limit proposal. This arbitrary and nonsensical proposal does nothing to actually improve safety for pedestrians and those who use micro mobility solutions to get around our great city.

  Why is it that I when I ride the subway, it’s a frequent experience to see 4+ police officers standing around on their phones, doing absolutely nothing, while I can ride an electric Citibike (or my own bike) from Brooklyn to Manhattan on some of the busiest bike routes and bridges in the city and not come across one police officer enforcing basic, common sense biking rules?

  Let’s focus on educating and enforcing those laws and rules that will actually make our roads safer for those walking and biking. How about we start with making sure both parties honor green and red lights instead of walking in front of cyclist that have the right of way or speeding through red lights on a bike? How about we make sure cyclists are going the RIGHT DIRECTION on a one way street instead of putting each other in danger by riding against traffic? How about we encourage and enforce cyclist to wear helmets and avoid riding with headphones in their ears? Creating effective education campaigns and enforcing common sense regulations will actually improve the situation from all involved.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 8:29am

• Alan Gerber

  Speed limits should be applied in order of danger, and nearly all traffic deaths happen due to cars/trucks. Therefore any speed limit adjustment, and general traffic safety policy, should prioritize enforcement with regards to these vehicles.

  Beyond that, I commute on a pedal-assist electric bicycle. Traffic lights are timed at the 25mph speed limit on many NYC streets. Riding the bike at up to the 20mph it is designed for allows me to travel at/near the speed the street is designed for, and thus I follow all the red lights. If the city’s goal is to get road users to travel at 15mph, it should retime the lights to that speed, as on a stretch of upper 3rd Ave.

  Riding at a substantially slower speed than streets are designed for would means hitting red lights every few blocks, encouraging dis-adherence. Slower travel also encourages anti-social drivers to threaten to assault me for riding on the street.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 8:35am

• Peter Nigrini

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!”

  Comment added June 26, 2025 8:39am

• Matthew

  If you look in the comments, you literally cannot find a single person that thinks this is a good idea.

  If the job of government is to represent the people, this a terrible step in the wrong direction.

  If you look at Citi bike, their preemptive enforcement of this before it’s even a law has essentially ruined the service completely. Reducing from 18mph to 15mph *without decreasing price* created a more expensive and longer commute to loyal members who have already dealt with price increases from this company.

  It also paints us as idiots that don’t know what we are doing when the majority of e-bike riders are totally fine and obey the street laws.

  The people acting crazy on the e-bikes are mainly delivery riders, who are incentivized by the apps they work for to ride as brazenly as possible. DoorDash / Uber Eats riders should have to register licenses for their e-bikes that their delivery riders use. (paid for by those companies).

  Comment added June 26, 2025 8:50am

• Andrew Cohen

  E-bikes need to obey the law, but lowering the speed limit below that of cars is ridiculous. Treat them as cars and enforce traffic laws.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 8:53am

• Joseph Montgomery

  Speed restrictions on these types of bicycles will not reduce the damage inflicted on pedestrians and cyclists on new york streets. That damage and violence is perpetuated by automobiles and trucks who drive with impunity in new york city. Move traffic enforcement to the department of transportation and enforce moving violations against motor vehicles over 1000 lbs and street safety will drastically improve. This bill is just gaslighting the public into thinking e-bikes are the issue.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 9:01am

• Albertine Harris

  No unfair bike laws. No special speed limit for bikes.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 9:01am

• Alexander Nakhla

  No one will use Citibike if this regulation goes through which would be a shame because Citibike has been a great way to reduce the pressure of commuters on other forms of public transportation. It also helps with reducing overall automobile congestion in the city which has been an ongoing issue. Pushing this regulation forward is a horrible idea and it should be reversed immediately.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 9:14am

• Charles Step

  If you are going to have 15 miles per hour speed limit make it universal for all vehicles and not only e-bikes and treat all road users fairly. Otherwise stop discriminating against bike and e-bike users. A motor vehicle traveling at greater speed is a lot more dangerous than any kind of micromobility user.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 9:37am

• Anita Lanzi

  I am strongly opposed to the absurd and unfair proposal to for an e-bike speed limit. The city would ensure greater safety for all by either educating the public on sharing the streets safely and/or better enforcement of regulations meant to make sure that automobile drivers obey rules. I believe that in general reducing the number of cars on city streets makes us safer. Harassing cyclists and potentially discouraging bicycle use seems counter-intuitive to increasing safety.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 9:55am

• Eric Eisenberg

  This proposed rule, if enacted, will cause an appreciable number of persons to switch from using bicycles with electric assist, electric scooters, or pedal-assist commercial bicycles, which are relatively low-emission forms of transit, to using fossil fuel-powered cars or trucks, which are relatively high emission forms of transit and which increase congestion, further increasing overall emissions through time spent idling in gridlock. The resulting increase in emissions will, or at least may, cause environmental harm, including but not limited to harm to the health of New Yorkers through emissions exposure and climate change.

  I do not understand that the city has performed any environmental review as to this rule, rendering it illegal under SEQRA and CEQA frameworks. Please scrap this rulemaking, or at a minimum commence a full environmental review given the obvious harms to the environment from it encouraging fossil fuel consumption.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 9:59am

• Stephen Zorio

  Reckless drivers continue to kill and maim New Yorkers with impunity yet e-bikes have become the focus of this mistaken, poorly thought out, and ill intentioned rule. The solution here is to make rules for the modes of transport that pose an actual threat to life (cars) and to take space away from the world’s most inefficient form of transportation (cars) and give it to pedestrians and bikes so encounters between the two are limited and rare. This e-bike rule is a mistake, I implore you to reject it and focus on actual, empirically provable, problems: cars.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 10:09am

• Miriam Fischer

  This policy change — which applies only to people on e-bikes — is dangerous and illogical. You can be arrested for pedaling faster than 15 mph on a 30-pound bike that doesn’t have a speedometer, while someone behind the wheel of a two-ton truck speeding 35 mph without even a traffic ticket.

  Criminalizing biking won’t make streets safer. It will discourage people from cycling, making streets less safe for everyone — while exposing thousands of New Yorkers to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation just for riding a bike. Tell NYC DOT: No unfair bike laws! No special speed limit for bikes!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 10:42am

• Tina M Bailey

  To Whom It May Concern,

  As a lifelong bicyclist and someone who has twice been hit by cars while biking—and many more times screamed at to “get off the road”—I am writing to strongly oppose the proposed rule that would limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. This proposal is not only illogical but dangerous. It reflects a deeply flawed understanding of street safety, and risks criminalizing the very people trying to travel cleanly, efficiently, and safely in an already perilous urban environment.

  Let’s be clear: people riding bikes do not cause the crisis on our streets—cars and trucks do. Year after year in New York City, motor vehicle drivers are responsible for tens of thousands of crashes, hundreds of pedestrian and cyclist deaths, and countless injuries. Cyclists, on the other hand, cause almost no fatalities. And yet this rule would punish them with speed traps and criminal penalties for traveling just 15 mph—while SUVs roar through the same lanes at 35 mph with little or no enforcement.

  This rule would not enhance safety. Instead, it would further discourage biking, which research clearly shows makes streets more dangerous for everyone. Worse, it opens the door to discriminatory enforcement. It would empower police to stop, ticket, or arrest e-bike riders—disproportionately immigrants, working-class people, and people of color—for minor speed infractions, exposing them to potential criminal records, harassment, or even deportation in Trump’s renewed anti-immigrant crackdown.

  Biking is not a crime, and we should stop treating it like one. If the goal is to improve safety, the solution is not criminalization—it’s infrastructure. Build more dedicated, protected bike lanes. Expand e-bike charging and storage options. Make streets genuinely accessible to people who don’t drive. Encourage biking by making it safer, not riskier.

  I urge the Department of Transportation to take the following steps instead:

  Reject the proposed 15 mph e-bike speed limit.

  Work with New York City to enforce Sammy’s Law, which would allow the city to set a 20 mph speed limit for all vehicles.

  Support legislation that holds delivery app companies accountable for the unrealistic, unsafe paces they force on their workers.

  Expand investments in protected bike lane infrastructure to separate cyclists from high-speed car traffic and reduce sidewalk riding.

  Fund education and outreach programs that promote safe cycling and mutual respect among road users.

  As someone who has already endured being hit by cars—twice—I can tell you: bicyclists are not the problem. We are the people trying to make this city more livable, less polluted, and more humane. Please do not undermine those efforts by saddling us with arbitrary limits and criminal penalties.

  Sincerely,

  Comment added June 26, 2025 10:51am

• Safiya Altman

  Blindly lumping all e-bikes together and restricting speeds is not going to solve the problem of deliveristas riding unsafely. Until cars are restricted to 20mph on neighborhood streets, this will just create further negative interactions between cars and bikes

  Comment added June 26, 2025 10:51am

• Patrick Brady

  I oppose this proposed law, which will bring more unnecessary harassment of cyclists.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 10:58am

• Ryan Goldberg

  This is a ludicrous proposal. Cars, not e-bikes, are unequivocally the greatest threat to pedestrians (and cyclists) on our streets, and the City has made almost no effort to rein in speeders by lowering speed limits on its streets for car drivers, as is now its state-mandated right. Regulate the delivery-app companies; make the streets safer for everyone with a real network of hardened protected bike lanes.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 10:58am

• Garrett Blinkhorn

  I have been an avid e-bike rider through CitiBike since moving to NYC, with over 800 rides and over 3000 miles traveled using these e-bikes (see attachment). Other comments have already addressed the questionable legality of such a rule in the first place, so I won’t argue this point further although I agree strongly with it (see the comment from “CereBel Legal Intelligence” summarizing this issue as a starting point).

  The artificial speed limit of 15 mph which was rolled out by the Adams administration has significantly decreased the quality of the service received (in terms of travel time and associated costs) while at the same time increasing the danger faced by the rider in utilizing it.

  I can think of countless times in the past where I have been traveling down streets or avenues which don’t have bike lanes or allow room for passing by vehicles following, but I never felt like I was in the way of traffic following behind me because I was able to travel at approximately the same speed as the cars behind me. I was able to effectively ride with the flow of traffic as a result.

  Now, it is obvious that I am in the way (even though I have every right to use these roads on an e-bike just like drivers of cars do) and several drivers have already made dangerous attempts to pass me to avoid having their own speed limited. This never occurred prior to the speed limit rollout, but it has become a significant risk now.

  Unfortunately, useable bike lanes are not universal across all streets/avenues (and this is not realistically achievable in the city anyways), so any e-bike legislation MUST assume that riders will need to share the existing roadways with motor vehicles. That being the case, minimizing the differential in speed between e-bikes and motor vehicles allows riders to operate naturally within the flow of traffic without impeding drivers. An increase in the speed differential between these modes of transportation INCREASES the risks faced by riders while simultaneously impeding the flow of traffic, effectively penalizing that mode of transportation entirely. See the comment from “Amber DaSilva” which discusses this point as well.

  Furthermore, its logically ridiculous to limit the speed of an e-bike to 15 mph when any rider using a standard bike with a gear system can easily exceed this. The entire point of an e-bike is to achieve the same mobility as a regular bicycle, but with reduced effort. Anyone who has taken even one ride using an e-bike on a hot summer day can appreciate how significant/important this reduction in effort really is, and riders should not be penalized for utilizing the Citibike e-bike platform if the same rule can not be applied to ALL cyclists.

  It is obvious that a 15 mph speed limit cannot be artificially enforced on standard cyclists since they don’t use electronic systems (is the NYPD going to set speed traps and write tickets to cyclists who exceed it?), and it is obvious that the speed limit cannot be artificially enforced on individuals riding privately-owned e-bikes as well without utilizing the same style of speed traps. Therefore, it is ONLY the users of the Citibike platform which are being artificially limited to a speed of 15 mph, which effectively discourages the usage of such a platform when privately-owned options face no such restriction. The city should be looking for ways to expand the adoption of public modes of transportation, not discouraging their usage in favor of private alternatives.

  The only reason why the Adams administration was able to roll this out so quickly is due to the specific nature of the relationship between Citibike and NYC as a whole. They would never be able to rollout an artificial speed limit to privately owned e-bikes in the same way, and its worth noting that we don’t even attempt to roll out speed governors for automobiles for the exact same reasons.

  I am STRONGLY urging the DOT to rescind the artificial speed limit on Citibikes in compliance with NY VTL 1642 (26.(a)), which prohibits NYC from establishing a speed limit “throughout the city” at a limit below 20 mph. A citywide limit of 15mph on commercial bicycles is such a prohibited limit. This kind of performative, reactive, and poorly-though-through action taken by the Adams administration is exactly why I look forward to voting him out of office in November, and the DOT has an opportunity now to correct this injustice while aligning e-bike usage with the existing laws as written.

  Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to attending the public hearing to discuss this further.

  Comment attachment
  CitibikeProfile.pdf

  Comment added June 26, 2025 10:58am

• Patrick Thomas Schnell

  I am writing in reference to the proposed rule would amend sections 4-01 and 4-06 of Chapter 4 of Title 34 of the Rules of the City of New York (“34 RCNY”) to add speed restrictions for people operating bicycles with electric assist (“e-bikes”), electric scooters, or pedal-assist commercial bicycles on NYC streets.
  As an avid bike rider, I encounter a multitude of dangerous issues in NYC traffic daily. Evidently, on occasion, e-bikes go too fast. However, that is not even on the top 20 of the issues that truly endanger cyclists or pedestrians. The concept that reducing e-bike speed would in any way increase safety could only have been crafted by people who are not participating in traffic other than as drivers. Based on actual evidence, it is clear that cars, buses, and trucks pose by far the greatest danger to life and limb for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers themselves. Thus, any enforcement action should focus on those traffic participants.
  Please do not make e-bikes less desirable by reducing speed. This has nothing to do with safety. E-bikes are a welcome addition to traffic in NYC and may reduce noise and air pollution (and increase safety for all!) any time they replace vehicular transportation.
  Thank you for considering,
  Patrick Schnell, M.D., FAAP

  Comment added June 26, 2025 11:07am

• Christian Hansen

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 12:35pm

• Joseph Davis

  The use of NYPD officers to issue criminal summonses for minor bike violations is not an effective use of police resources. Police officers are already expected to do too many things that do not relate to major crimes. The proposal is an abuse both of cyclists and of police officers.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 12:36pm

• Christine Edwards

  E bikes are not inherently more dangerous than regular bikes and a lot of regular bikers achieve speeds over 15 miles an hour easily.

  More protected bike lanes will offer better safety results and dedicated roads to only buses, bikes and pedestrians ( especially cross town). Outer boroughs need more of this type of infrastructure as well.

  There should be more enforcement against double parking and cars and trucks parked existing in bike lanes. It’s insane the amount of obstacles and traffic jams and blind spots delivery vehicles create. Crack down on that first before coming after the food delivery guys who work extremely hard to make a living, not to mention regular bike commuters

  Comment added June 26, 2025 1:00pm

• Ryan Quinn

  Dear NYC Transportation Officials,
  I oppose the proposed 15mph speed limit for e-bikes as it would create significant safety and practical concerns for cyclists throughout the city.
  A 15mph limit would force e-bike riders to travel at dangerously slow speeds relative to traffic flow. On many NYC streets, maintaining this speed would put cyclists at risk of being rear-ended by vehicles or create dangerous situations where cars attempt risky passing maneuvers around slower-moving bikes.
  The current 20mph limit for Class 1 and 2 e-bikes strikes an appropriate balance between safety and functionality. E-bikes are essential transportation for delivery workers, commuters, and residents who depend on efficient travel across NYC. Reducing speeds by 25% would significantly impact delivery times, commute efficiency, and the economic viability of e-bike-dependent livelihoods. Not to mention slow the adoption of bicycles in NY.
  Rather than blanket speed restrictions, the city should focus on improving bike infrastructure, enforcing existing traffic laws equally for all road users, and addressing the root causes of accidents through better street design and education.
  E-bikes represent a crucial piece of NYC’s sustainable transportation future. Overly restrictive speed limits will discourage adoption and push people back to less environmentally friendly transportation options.
  Thank you for considering these concerns.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 1:41pm

• S

  I agree with this proposal an in addition would like to see these registered, and operators should have drivers license. There are to many maniacs driving the wrong way, disobeying traffic devices, cutting cars and pedestrians off, and riding on sidewalks.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 1:44pm

• S. Nam

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 1:44pm

• Eric Schneider

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 1:47pm

• Eric Radezky

  I support this proposal to add speed restrictions of 15mph to all e-bikes that have motors or pedal-assist. These bikes are dangerous. I was hit and injured by one in 2022. Many elderly people I know are scared to cross the streets because of the fear of being hit, and some people are hit by these bikes.
  Bike advocates will say this is “criminalizing cycling,” but it is not. It is simply an attempt to regulate a dangerous situation, the same as the City Council does in any number of other situations where the public is put at risk. And I myself am a cyclist and have been in NYC for 30 years. But I do not use any type of motor on my bike, so the fastest speed I can possibly get up to is 12mph. That means two things: first, I have more time to stop if a potential crash is imminent, and second, there is a big difference between 12mph and 15mph or 20mph. You might not think it but there is.
  So please move this bill forward and pass it. Do not get distracted by the concentrated lobbying effort sure to come from Transportation Alternatives against this proposal. The fact that they oppose it shows that they are not a safety-first advocacy group but rather that their policies are bikes-first, always, regardless of any danger those bikes might pose to the public, and that’s sad.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 3:14pm

• Veronica Brown

  I strongly oppose the 15 mph speed limit on e-bikes. This rule does not make New Yorkers safe, instead it exposes New Yorkers to dangerous contact with law enforcement. If the City was serious about making the streets safer, it would invest in bicycle infrastructure and take action to limit dangerous cars from speeding.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 3:32pm

• Steven Greenfield

  I support Mayor Adams’s proposals for cracking down on e-bikes, which never should have been made street legal in the first place. They should be required to be licensed, and offenders should be subject to sanctions. Moreover, the delivery apps and restaurants that incentivize their lawbreaking should be penalized. I cannot stress enough how New Yorkers’ quality of life is adversely affected when you take your own life into your hands every time you cross the street: e-bike riders, often delivery people, speeding, running red lights, going the wrong way down one-way streets, riding in pedestrian-only lanes, riding on the West Side Esplanade, which is illegal, using Riverside Park as a delivery-bike expressway, etc. Enough already!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 3:39pm

• Brian F

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is stupid, illogical, and puts New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in Trump’s illegal immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is insane (a hallmark of Addumbs and the NYPD) to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for EVERY vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. And I VOTE!! Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 4:58pm

• Adam Gibbs

  I oppose the proposed e-bike speed restriction and believe it is unhelpful and misguided. Why would we restrict the speed of an e-bike, which is a few feet long and weighs less than 75 pounds, at 15 MPH while we continue to allow a speed limit of 25 MPH for passenger cars that weigh more than 4,000 pounds on average? This proposed rule seems to be scapegoating e-bike riders–whether immigrant deliveristsas who help the city run or mothers ferrying their kids to school in cargo bikes–while ignoring the larger issue of vehicular violence in our city. Please reject this rule change and focus your energy on truly making the streets of NYC safer with universal daylighting, low traffic neighborhoods, and more streets that are designed for pedestrians (the vast majority of NYC residents) rather than automobiles. Thank you.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 5:11pm

• Mary Beth Kooper

  Bikers who go too fast on the roads should get traffic tickets, NOT CRIMINAL summonses. I am vehemently opposed to this proposed rule. It will do nothing for safety and it will unjustly expose delivery workers, commuters, and anyone who bikes to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation — all for simply riding a bike.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 5:23pm

• Peter Johnston

  The speed limit for e-bikes is ridiculous. E-bikes are HARMLESS. Cars kill and injure about 250 times more New Yorkers than e-bikes. Yes, I typed that right. Two hundred fifty! Only .4% (yes, point-four, as in four out of every thousand!) traffic injuries are caused by e-bikes. The other 99.6% are caused by cars.
  A car is wider and less maneuverable than an e-bike, and a car has blind spots, and cars protect their drivers (which encourages reckless behavior), and so a car is much more likely to hit a person. Cars are much faster than e-bikes, and dozens to hundreds of times heavier, and so a person struck by a car will be much more seriously injured than an equivalent person struck by an e-bike.
  And yet the mayor insists on giving criminal summonses for cyclists who break laws, while insisting on not giving summonses for car drivers (who are objectively more dangerous!) who break the exact same laws. Ridiculous!
  And now he wants a speed limit on e-bikes that’s 40% lower than the lowest speed limit the city imposes on cars! Get the fuck out of here!

  Comment added June 26, 2025 8:03pm

• Victor M Ortiz

  It will turned to become a Collar for Dollars and a gateway for Quotas and promotions for bad, lazy and unproductive law officers.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 8:12pm

• Shane LeClair

  We don’t need new rules to keep our streets safe!

  Enforce all of the existing traffic rules and keep bikes, e-bikes and scooter off the sidewalks.

  It’s not the speed of e-bikes that is the problem. It is the reckless use on sidewalks and against traffic that causes problems.

  Enforcing existing traffic rules for cars and trucks would also help ease this problem. I ride a bike every day and see cars blatently running red lights every day.

  Safer streets will keep riders off sidewalks and limit conflict with pedestrians.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 8:46pm

• Andrew Morrison

  Cars are what’s killing New Yorkers. Every single day many people die or are injured by cars. I can’t let my young son go out on the street for fear that he’s going to get killed by a car and we’re doing almost nothing to enforce existing rules meant to keep us safe.

  I always assumed we didn’t have enough cops to enforce our rules for cars, so when I see resources being dedicated to going after bikes it makes me so angry with the city government for making terribly misinformed priority decisions with deadly consequences.

  Rules for bikes are wonderful but please, for the safety of all New Yorkers, make the right priority decisions and focus your energy on the actual source of so much death and injury in our city, cars.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 9:23pm

• Darrien Glasser

  It seems absurd to think we’re requiring speed limits for e-bikes before we restrict the speed of cars. Cars take up significantly more space and have killed significantly more people. Why are we focusing on e-bikes and scooters? We need to focus on the actual problem at hand first, cars and motorists. We can reconsider e-bikes and such only after we’ve handled the car problem that plagues New York.

  Comment added June 26, 2025 10:04pm

• Christopher Sanders

  “I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  “Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  “Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  “To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  “I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!”

  Comment added June 26, 2025 10:22pm

• Daniel Starr

  Don’t criminalize bikes. I’m more afraid of being killed by cars speeding through red lights. Build more bike lanes.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 7:57am

• Marco Nieves

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 8:37am

• Hans

  No E-anything should be in the bike lanes, only human powered bikes. I’m 100% for an e-everything ban. They created a dangerous environment and don’t deserve to be anywhere in NYC.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 8:42am

• Chris Peterson

  I cannot wrap my head around how you can logically implement a city wide 15 mph speed limit on e-bikes when you do not do the same for cars who injure and kill statistically what would be considered 100% of pedestrians in NYC.

  It so insane to me that this can be presented as a responsible policy. History will judge you. The facts are clear today.

  Do the right thing. The heavy lifting. Start regulating the apps. They need to be responsible employers. Train their workers. Maintain their own fleet. Contribute to the infrastructure they are relying on. Citibike should cap all e-bike rides. They should not be charging riders per the minute!! This is why you are getting a considerable amount of rude riding behaviors from Citibike riders. Fund it and cap the fare.

  Lastly, build out better infrastructure everywhere. I live in East New York and it’s appalling to me how much you ignore pedestrians and bicyclists in public space design here. You just repaved Pitkin Ave. A great opportunity to improve safety. What did you do? You painted it exactly how it was. A death trap for cyclists and pedestrians.

  We just had a primary election. I hope the message was sent loud and clear. This city is ours. It’s not for billionaires and their buddies who drive around in Dodge Chargers or who call themselves the “Bike Mayor” and then get chauffeured around in giant SUVs.

  It’s our city. You work for us. Not them. And, we’re not resting on our heels again for a while.

  This all goes for the Bedford Ave bike lane too.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 9:01am

• Jonathan Keller

  Not sure why cyclists are being disproportionately targeted, except that it’s low hanging fruit. As much as e-bikes are annoying, they constitute such a tiny percentage of the crashes and injuries in this city, and yet, tickets to ebikers and cyclists are being sent to criminal court, while drivers, who have only increased in their reckless behavior in the last 5 years, get standard summonses, if they even get ticketed. Why not focus the attention on the true danger to the city’s residents, than this token move to appease a vocal anti-cyclist minority?

  I do not ride an e-bike, but I am not blind to the real danger on the city’s streets. Cars and trucks.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 9:24am

• Daniel Rothblatt

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to lower the e-bike speed limit to 15 mph. Drivers kill hundreds of New Yorkers on our streets every year; cyclists, none. It is laughable to look at these numbers and propose police action against cyclists. The proposed rule is based on fear, not facts, and would not address any of the problems people are having with our streets.

  There are real safety concerns around commercial e-bikes, specifically e-bikes for delivery companies like Doordash, which force their delivery workers to move an enormous number of food orders at an unsafe pace. Instead of punishing the workers for their employers’ bad behavior, we need regulation on these food delivery apps so that their workers can work at a safer pace.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 9:28am

• Amy Obermeyer

  I am writing to express my extreme disgust at the fact we are even having this conversation as a community.

  The overwhelming majority of injuries and fatalities are caused by cars and their drivers. Cars, and especially pickups and SUVs, are orders of magnitude heavier, have huge blindspots e-micromobility devices lack, and have large and high hoods/bumpers to draw cyclists and pedestrians under. There is no reason for e-micromobility to have lower speed limits; in fact it is cars whose speed limits are too high (and wildly unenforced).

  There is exactly one reason to enact this proposed law, and it is racism. There is no doubt in my mind that the backlash against e-cyclists is wholly reducible to racism. The fact of the matter is this is clearly targeting deliveristas, who are disproportionately non-white and foreign-born.

  If this were actually about safety, we would be asking why we allow cars to regularly drive so fast and recklessly without consequence, and we would be holding delivery companies accountable, both for encouraging reckless behavior, and also for the regular wage theft and liability-skirting these same apps are notorious for. Anything less is wanton racism.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 9:59am

• Jennifer Poole

  This proposed rule will not make our streets safer. There is barely any enforcement of cars running stop signs, not yielding to pedestrians, traveling at speeds higher than 25 mph, parking in crosswalks, double parking everywhere. Cars and trucks pose many more hazards to everyone on the streets–drivers, cyclists, or pedestrians. Delivery workers, Citibike riders, and other e-mobility users should not have more enforcement than 2,000-6,000 pound vehicles who can (and do) travel at very deadly speeds on our city streets.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 10:36am

• Eoin

  No unfair bike laws! No special speed limit for bikes!

  To whom it may concern,

  This policy change — which applies only to people on e-bikes — is dangerous and illogical. You can be arrested for pedaling faster than 15 mph on a 30-pound bike that doesn’t have a speedometer, while someone behind the wheel of a two-ton truck speeding 35 mph without even a traffic ticket.

  Criminalizing biking won’t make streets safer. It will discourage people from cycling, making streets less safe for everyone — while exposing thousands of New Yorkers to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation just for riding a bike. No unfair bike laws! No special speed limit for bikes!

  If you want to make our streets safer, start by cracking down on reckless driving and red light traffic violations!

  We should be making our infrastructure safer for cyclist (not criminalizing it) and pedestrians by adding more protected bike lines and improved signage.

  Thank you!

  Comment added June 27, 2025 10:57am

• Brooklyn Resident

  As a pedestrian, this rule change does nothing to keep bikers or pedestrians safer. It’s not easily enforceable and will lead to further criminalization of bikers, at a time when the city should be focusing on getting more people out of congestion-causing, dangerous cars and into bikes.

  DOT should instead focus on making streets safer for pedestrians – by increasing daylighting and decreasing speed limits to prevent auto crashes, which cause 100% of pedestrian deaths

  Comment added June 27, 2025 11:03am

• John

  More restrictions need to be put in place. Bikers are extremely reckless and put the burden of safety on everything else except themselves.

  Running red lights ( without looking both ways ), running stop signs ( without looking ), and putting themselves in dangerous situations for themselves..

  Comment added June 27, 2025 11:08am

• Carl Wojciechowski

  Speed limits on bikes make no sense. Most ebikes are already limited in their speed by design, and this will just make it so that police improperly overpolice bikes while motor vehicles continue to be able to speed with impunity. In many cases, especially where there is no bike lane available, it is imperative that cyclists are able to keep up with cars, which are moving at 20 mph or faster. This is a nonsense rule and should not be implemented.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 11:10am

• Joe Matunis

  Stop the criminalization of bicycle related traffic offenses. No to the 15 mph speed limit on e bikes.

  Please improve safety in bike lanes by increasing enforcement of non bike use of lanes. Add more closed streets and protected bike lanes.

  Thank you!

  Comment added June 27, 2025 11:15am

• Juliette Moore

  I regularly see drivers make dangerous turns, speed, run red lights with zero consequences except a high number of pedestrian deaths. Why set a policy that doesn’t impact pedestrian deaths or injuries or safety? This change is a politcal stunt, hostile to cyclists and is not based on any metrics of safety.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 12:47pm

• Ben Eustace

  The proposed law is not supported by data and does not fix the real issue: insufficient biking infrastructure and lack of public education on safe biking. Plus, bikes can still go faster than 15mph. This is just knee jerk reaction not supported by data.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 1:44pm

• Maureen Muldoon

  Higher speeds should at least be allowed for experienced users with more miles under their belt, membership holders, or those of a certain age. I’ve been riding the ebikes for almost 3 years with no accidents or falls but all near misses I may have had were from cars not respecting the bike lanes. These bikes are so necessary for those in the outer boroughs who aren’t close to the trains. Please bring the speeds back to 20mph or lower the price back to 19 cents a minute. We can’t keep taking these price increases.

  Here’s some changes that people actually want.
  -Queens to Brooklyn flat rates
  -higher gears for blue bikes
  -Phone holders

  Comment added June 27, 2025 2:42pm

• Daniel W.

  This is a dangerous rule. Bike riders, including e-bike riders, are often forced to share the roadway with cars, either because of a lack of bike lanes, or because cars are driving in or blocking dedicated bike lanes. Forcing e-bikes to ride at 15 mph when a line of cars behind it wants to drive at 20 or 25 mph endangers the lives of bike riders.

  I speak from experience. I ride a pedal-assist e-bike commuting to work, 11 miles a day, between Brooklyn and Manhattan. I am forced, literally on a daily basis, to ride in the street with cars, even when there are dedicated bike lanes on the street, because those bike lanes are constantly blocked by parked cars, delivery trucks, and NYPD vehicles. A week does not go by when I do not face a driver with road rage who (1) resents that I am biking in the street, (2) wants to go faster, and (3) endangers my safety by trying to go around me or tailgate me to literally force me off the road. Forcing e-bike riders to ride slower will only exacerbate this.

  That this will make roads more dangerous is so blatantly obvious to anyone that rides a bike in this City. Limiting e-bike speeds to 15 mph is absolutely dangerous, will hurt people, and is the wrong thing to do.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 2:44pm

• Katherine Herman

  I am writing to oppose the proposed rule lowering the speed limit for e-bikes to 15 miles per hour. There is no reason that e-bikes, which cause a tiny proportion of injuries compared to cars and trucks, should have a lower speed limit. While there are dangerous users of mopeds and e-bikes out there, this rule won’t fix that. Rather, this seems to be part of an effort to vilifying e-bike users for political gain. We need to encourage New Yorkers to use environmentally friendly and less dangerous forms of transportation like e-bikes rather than cars, not scapegoat and criminalize them.

  I also want to argue against the lumping of pedal assist e-bikes, which are similar to traditional bicycles except for the inclusion of a small motor to make it easier to carry heavier loads, with mopeds. We cannot make good policy if we treat these as the same type of vehicle.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 2:49pm

• Stephanie

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 3:43pm

• Jarrod Koenig

  The way the new 15mph ebike speed cap is being implemented has created a giant safety issue.

  The bikes don’t just stop helping you pedal at 15mph — they actually start to lock up. That means if you’re trying to get out of the way of a car or avoid a hazard, the bike might slow you down instead.

  It’s dangerous and counterintuitive. The speed cap should mean that the pedal assist cuts out: it should not override the rider and potentially begin engine braking when you might be in the middle of dangerous situation.

  Please fix this.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 4:21pm

• Cotter Christian

  The 15 mph cap on Citi Bike e-bikes is a reactionary policy that punishes riders while failing to address the real public safety crisis: unsafe streets dominated by cars and trucks.
  If safety were truly the priority, we’d see the city enforcing a 15 mph cap on vehicles, which are responsible for the vast majority of pedestrian injuries and fatalities. Instead, this feels like a politically motivated decision meant to placate a vocal minority, rather than a data-driven response.
  E-bikes at 18 mph were one of the only efficient, low-emission alternatives to driving. Slowing them down, without offering safer bike infrastructure or reduced pricing, reveals the city’s unwillingness to invest in real, long-term solutions.
  I urge the city to reconsider this short-sighted rule. Restore the 18 mph limit, or at least create an opt-in tier for experienced riders. Don’t let e-bikes be a scapegoat for poor infrastructure.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 4:40pm

• Edward Carmody

  Sorry, but it seems dumb to have different speed limits for different types of vehicles. However, if we are going to do that, then we should slow down the vehicles doing the most harm to pedestrians, which is cars and trucks. Doing anything else is super disrespectful to those who have suffered and/or died at the hands of reckless car and truck drivers.

  A good alternative to changing the speed limits for ebikes only would be to start revoking the licenses and impounding vehicles that have repeated moving violations in NYC. Those are the ones causing the danger to the public.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 4:55pm

• Dylan Brown

  Bikes account for a fraction of injuries and almost NO deaths in New York City. Why not focus on the thousands of injuries, both serious and minor, and DEATHS that occur from automobiles every year. Preventable deaths that should be addressed as opposed to focusing on cyclists and vulnerable populations attempting to make a living.

  Comment added June 27, 2025 8:39pm

• Austin Schnitzer

  Limiting e-bike speeds down to 15 mph from the current 20mph cap on most e-bikes without addressing driver speeds will not improve safety. E-bikes were responsible for less than half a percent of last year’s 10,000+ traffic injuries while drivers were responsible for over 99% over injuries.
  The city should instead be focused on implementing Sammy’s law to lower the citywide speed limit for all road users instead of singling out an already slow form of transportation.
  Current rules that allow drivers to go 35mph without facing automating ticketing pose a much greater danger to pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. The city should lower the speed limit to 20 mph for all and focus on enforcing existing traffic laws.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 8:21am

• K.O.

  I am against this proposal to limit e-bikes. It is illogical and will allow police to ticket whoever they want, for example, in the middle of a bridge. While I understand the intent, what needs to change is cycling etiquette/accountability and road design. I say this as a bike commuter, red lights are predictable, cyclists need to come to a stop. Hand signals are easy to use to indicate if they are turning/biking across a crosswalk. Lights are mandatory at night. Pedestrians could benefit from better street designs and physical islands between bike lanes and car lanes. They can also be more aware, I’ve seen many pedestrians not look to cross a red pedestrian light and almost get hit by cyclists. All this to say, I have also regularly seen cyclists watching videos on their phone while cycling, intentionally crossing red lights, and cutting through a crowd of pedestrians. These are the actions that should get ticketed but these instances are not an issue of speed. I’ve seen cyclists both fast and slow commit these issues. On a separate note, delivery people are also a large proponent of this issue because their income from delivery companies come from the need to speed.

  Slowing the speed limit will only cause people run red lights at 14mph. If running a red is illegal, we don’t need another useless law.

  I urge NYC DOT to reject this proposal; cycling can be safer, cleaner and healthier for the city especially compared to cars.

  Thank you

  PS. Traffic lights timed also for cyclists have been very helpful in not running red lights.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 9:20am

• William Farrell

  This proposed 15 mph is arbitrary and capricious, based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 11:32am

• Scott Rubin

  Why does this speed limit apply only to E-Bikes, E-Scooters, and Pedal-Assist Commercial Bicycles? A car or truck is more more dangerous than any of those. Getting hit by an E-Bike going over 15mph could cause serious injury, but I would rather get hit by the E-Bike than a car.

  Please set the citywide speed limit for all motor vehicles of any kind, including cars and trucks, to 15mph at all times on al streets.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:04pm

• Nathan Dennis

  I strongly oppose this arbitrary speed limit for e-bikes. The vast majority of all accidents occur via cars — cars that speed, cars that run through red lights and stop signs. When e-bikes have to leave protected bikelanes, they are at the mercy of these same cars. Forcing the bikes even slower makes this cycling more dangerous. A smarter solution would be to focus on keeping motorcycles out of bike lanes, adding more protected bikelanes, daylighting intersections, and suspending licenses of reckless drivers.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:10pm

• Dave

  Motor vehicles cause the overwhelming majority of pedestrian. Based on city data: Private passenger cars account for 79% of all pedestrian KSI crashes. There were 6,024 pedestrians injured by motor vehicles in 2024 while only 354 by micro-mobility devices. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets. When I leave the house every day, I’m not scared of bikes — I’m scared of cars.

  I propose we reduce the speed limit for ALL motor vehicles in the entire city to 15mph (matching the speed limit for E-bikes). With a similar jest for enforcement from the NYPD, this would significantly improve pedestrian safety (especially for the elderly and kids). Dream big – let’s do it.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:10pm

• Kevin D

  Bikers are being unfairly targeted with additional restrictions when the rules of the road for drivers are rarely if ever enforced – and motor vehicles are significantly more dangerous. Take the time to improve the city for bikers instead of greedy car companies and the rich. As Zohran’s nomination proves, the people want change and not the government making things worse for everyone who can’t afford a limo.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:11pm

• Chris Efthimiou

  “I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment. E-bikers and cyclists can be reminded through public awareness campaigns to be mindful of pedestrians and fellow cyclists. Legal punishments are not the answer.

  “Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  “Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  “To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  “I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!”

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:13pm

• Zev Pogrebin

  New York City’s unjustified war on bikes continues. As hundreds of people riding and walking are killed and thousands are injured by cars and trucks, the city has decided to scapegoat e-bikes. This speed limit will make NYC streets more dangerous, as hostility to bikes will lower their mode share while continuing to take enforcement resources away from dangerous driving—the cause of our public health crisis.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:20pm

• Alyce

  Accidents and deaths caused by cars outnumber accidents and deaths caused by bikes in NYC. If we’re going to put a speed limit on e-bikes, then we should put the same speed limit on cars, and ensure there is equal enforcement from the NYPD. We should be be taking action on the most dangerous road users in the city – drivers – who disproportionately cause fatalities and injuries to pedestrians and bikers. Cars take up so much of the space on the road that pedestrians and bikers end up in each others’ way trying to stay safe from dangerous cars. Whether I’m walking or biking, I get yelled at by drivers, they speed by, and actively wish me harm. It is scary, and then drivers park in crosswalks, making walking even more dangerous. These driver transgressions are rarely enforced and pose a much greater danger to me, and should be dealt with at a much higher level of urgency than enforcement of ebikers.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:22pm

• Shanghao Zhong

  I am writing to express my strong opposition to the proposed 15 mph speed limit for e-bikes. This restriction is both unfair and potentially unsafe for the following reasons:
  Unfair Comparison to Cars: E-bikes are significantly lighter and less damaging in the event of an accident compared to cars. Despite this, cars are allowed speed limits of 25 mph or more in many areas. Enforcing a lower speed limit on e-bikes, given their lower potential for harm, is inconsistent and unjustified.
  Safety Concerns with Non-Electric Bikes: Many non-electric bicycles can easily exceed 15 mph, especially on downhill stretches or when ridden by experienced cyclists. Imposing a slower speed limit on e-bikes creates a speed differential that could lead to unsafe passing situations and increase the risk of accidents among cyclists.

  I urge you to reconsider this proposal and adopt alternative approaches, such as licensing requirements for e-bike delivery personnel, 25 mph speed limit that are on par with motor vehicles, and better street design that organically slow down cyclists and enable safe crossing.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:39pm

• Raymond Nagem

  Capping CitiBike speeds at 15 mph is unnecessary and counterproductive. E-bikes nationwide are typically governed to 20 mph for safety and efficiency, and there is no compelling evidence that 15 mph offers significantly more protection for either riders or pedestrians. The vast majority of serious accidents involving bicycles occur at intersections or due to interactions with motor vehicles, not due to a few extra miles per hour in a dedicated bike lane. Slowing bikes down actually increases risk by keeping riders in traffic zones longer.

  Moreover, limiting speeds to 15 mph reduces the appeal of the bike share program. Slowing bikes will discourage cycling and lead to more car use, more congestion, and more pollution.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:50pm

• Caroline

  This is a bad idea. New York doesn’t have bike lanes everywhere, so throttling the speed limit when I need to share the road with cars makes it wildly unsafe, especially when I use Citibike ebikes or when I use my own e-bike to commute to school. Manual bikes can go faster than 15 mph–Central Park even has a speed limit of 20 mph (source: https://www.centralparknyc.org/activities/guides/bicycling), which is a more sensible speed limit. Throttling the speed will not solve the underlying issue, which is dangerous actions like going the wrong way on the bike lane and crossing through red lights when there is active traffic.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:51pm

• David A Knowles

  I’d be fine with a 20mph but 15mph is ridiculous. Cars kill 3000 pedestrians a year in the city, why aren’t we talking about limiting them to 15mph?

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:52pm

• Evelyn Boeke

  Several years ago I was legally crossing the street when a vehicle hit me, tossing my body like a rag doll into the air and then against the asphalt on my back where it did severe and permanent damage to my spine. Like most pedestrians injuries or fatalities that was done by a car, not by a bike. Where are the 15 mph speed limits for the machines that actually hurt and kill people? This is mere predjudice, don’t pretend it is legislating or public health.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 12:54pm

• Clara Duffy

  I don’t believe e-bikes should be limited to a speed slower than cars, as cars are responsible for the vast majority of injuries on the road. I don’t believe focusing on the speed of a small group of road users who are most vulnerable to cars is the correct way to make everyone safer.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:01pm

• Caleb Massimi

  This makes ebikes more unsafe for those experiencing riders who commute on the streets. I already feel very uncomfortable taking a lane at 18mph with a car behind me. Going slower would put me more at risk. This reduces the viability of the bikes. I would propose variable speed limits based on seniority. Please do not limit the citibikes unilaterally.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:01pm

• OSCAR LARA

  I do not support this rule change to 15 mph. This decreased limit INCREASES DANGER for bike riders on the streets and is negligible for increasing safety. The bikes must be able to keep pace with the cars or it puts both drivers at risk for accidents. The city is best focused on focusing on dangerous cars for speeding. It is unenforceable and resources are better spent on making sure cars are not speeding and bikes are following existing traffic laws.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:03pm

• David Myers

  As a pedestrian and biker, I fully support the reduced speed limit. While some may oppose it on the basis that cars cause more harm, the fact remains that e-bikes, considered on their own merits, contribute greatly to the chaos and stress of our streets and parks. Our spaces must be safe for all users, including the disabled, elderly, and children. A reduced speed limit would make negotiating spaces easier and bikes both more predictable and less potentially harmful. The reduction in speed would result in a negligible difference in most trip times for most trips.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:12pm

• James Larghi

  Thank you for taking the safety of pedestrians into consideration. 15 mph is fine.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:21pm

• Dan K

  This arbitrary restriction is silly. Unless there is a plan to also limit motor vehicle traffic to 15 mph within city limits, this seems like a pointless exercise. We should be making it easier to adopt non-motor vehicle forms of transportation to minimize the real danger which is motor vehicles.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:21pm

• Hary Colon

  While intended to improve safety, this measure fails to address the real issues and may unintentionally increase risks for both riders and pedestrians.

  Sidewalk riding — a key concern cited in support of this policy — is not caused by e-bike speed, but by unsafe street conditions and a lack of protected bike infrastructure. Penalizing riders with lower speed limits does nothing to resolve that. It simply makes e-bike travel less practical and may push riders into more dangerous situations as they’re forced to share lanes with much faster vehicle traffic.

  This policy also risks diverting attention away from meaningful safety solutions. The city should prioritize expanding protected bike lanes, enforcing traffic violations, and improving street design. E-bike riders, particularly delivery workers, rely on safe, efficient travel. Slowing them down won’t make streets safer — better infrastructure will.

  Thank you for your consideration.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:22pm

• Michael Hassin

  The proposed 15 mph speed limit is arbitrary and capricious, the limit being based on the false notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them. Thank you for reading.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:25pm

• Concerned driver

  It is dangerous to limit cycle speeds while doing nothing about vehicular speeds or creating safe, uninterrupted, and unobscured cycle infrastructure. Oftentimes micro mobility users have to go into vehicular traffic lanes for a multitude of reasons (illegal double parked cars/trucks/etc. in cycle lanes, lack of cycle lane, damages or blocked cycle lane for construction, etc.), and forcing these users to only go 15 mph while vehicular traffic is free to go as fast as they please while ignoring traffic laws, pedestrians, and cyclists, is extremely unsafe.

  Please consider doing something about vehicular traffic (2,000 lbs minimum), or updating cycle infrastructure (or both) before wasting time and energy on speed limits for traffic that weighs less than 300lbs.

  I do not support this change and encourage the city to do something about dangerous drivers before going after cyclists.
  during the first quarter of 2025 there were 7,936 traffic injuries

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:26pm

• Vinny

  Attacking responsible ebike riders is punching down on the most vulnerable street users. Cars represent the most dangerous users, without a doubt.

  Publish any data suggesting that ebikes cause a significant number of pedestrian injuries to back up this nonsense.

  Instead, let’s actually hold drivers responsible. How do people who have racked up thousands of dollars of tickets still have a driver’s license? Car violence is normalized so the scapegoat is ebikes.

  Sure, ticket riders who ride on the sidewalk and blow through pedestrians at a red light. What does that have to do with 15MPH though? Why does a regular bike get to ride at 25, a car get to ride at 25, a motorcycle at 25, but not an ebike? It’s simply flailing and ultimately counterproductive to safe streets.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:33pm

• Adam Schwartz

  Slowing down city bikes is a bad idea.. it not the solution to the transportation problems in New York. Speeding E bikes from delivery drivers is an entirely separate issue with a separate solution. City bike riders are not causing many accidents.

  Citibime e-bike riders pay a lot of money per ride, and should not have to have the value of that ride diminished.

  In the end, the real problem is cars that are speeding. Not city bikes..

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:34pm

• Ricky Santos

  This is what I submitted:

  This proposed 15 mph is arbitrary and capricious, limit based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 1:45pm

• Erik Nilsen

  This proposed 15 mph limit is arbitrary and capricious, limit based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian deaths and injuries —is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  The speed limit for cycling should be the same as cars.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:01pm

• Sean M.

  This ruling has shown to be excessively punitive and even dangerous for Citibike riders (as they are now speed limited to 15 mph despite numerous price hikes which is fueling dangerous riding habits ), this ruling disproportionately harms those most in need for alternative micromobility solutions in a city full of cars that face little to no repercussions for the dozens of violations they commit every day, violations that are statistically more dangerous and more common than e-bike related incidents.

  Having rode Citibike before and after they implemented this 15 mph speed limit, my experience has been that the 15 mph limit is actually significantly more dangerous – the white citibikes are not fast enough to enter actual traffic flow when the bike lane is congested (which is legal) and I have witnessed white citibike riders moving much dangerous and unpredictably in order to make up for the extra costs due to the speed limit. They already were rushing before, now? It’s a madhouse in the bike lane, and there is no reprieve in traffic.

  This ruling is going to cost lives.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:07pm

• Wyatt Gorman

  This proposed 15 mph limit is arbitrary and capricious, limit based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:12pm

• Mike Woolford

  As someone who was in an accident on an e bike and injured, I believe this rule is ridiculous. A regular cyclist can easily get up to 15mph, and even 20. I do support at 25mph limit, the same limit that cars have in the city. Cyclists and pedestrians are at far greater risk from cars, than from ebikes. If safety of all ny residents is your goal, you time and money is better spent enforcing car speed limits, and protecting pedestrians and cyclists from large vehicles.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:19pm

• MICHAEL W SHERMAN

  E-bikes are basically harmless next to automobiles, and the city’s own crash and pedestrian injury stats make this clear. But this speed limit makes it much less safe to ebike and will likely lead to more injuries. Regular bikes and other vehicles illegally in the bike lanes (like mopeds and scooters) will not be similarly regulated, requiring e-bikes to break the flow of bike lane traffic, leading to more passing, increasingly the likelihood of additions injuries to both pedestrians and other bike lane users.

  Additionally, traveling safely in regular traffic, outside of bike lanes, is much safer at higher speeds. At 18-20 mph you can keep up with cars and drivers are less angry with you—go too slow and the chance of things like aggressive passing go up. You can see at places where bike lanes temporarily disappear (like smith to Jay st in downtown Brooklyn) that even non-ebike cyclists speed up when they have to join traffic, and then slow back down in bike lanes. The past few days since the citibike slowdownyou can see how non-electric bikes are passing electric citibikes in these kinds of areas—people are trying to flow with traffic to increase their safety.

  If the goal is bike lane safety, A speed limit in bike lanes (along with stricter enforcement of non-pedal assist e-bikes in bike lanes) might make sense. And more granular enforcement of the different electric bike classes would help as well. That fact that there’s no discussion of other ways to handle (the overblown) ebike dangers tells you how little the city actually thought about this rule.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:20pm

• Dez

  The proposed 15 mph limit appears arbitrary and unfounded, based on the exaggerated idea that e-bikes pose a distinct danger to pedestrians—despite their minimal role in serious injuries and fatalities. This isn’t to deny that e-bikes can cause harm or be misused, but treating them as a greater threat than motor vehicles—which are responsible for the vast majority of pedestrian deaths and injuries—fuels an irrational moral panic.

  Cars continue to be the primary danger to pedestrian safety and will remain so unless the legally mandated measures are fully enacted and reckless drivers are held accountable in proportion to the risks they pose to others.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:21pm

• Benjamin cifu

  This proposed 15 mph limit is arbitrary and capricious, based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them. Focus should not be on penalizing bikers who use ebikes to commute safely, reducing load on the streets, but instead on systems to improve the safety and organization of the thousands of delivery drivers who bike in the city. The systemic pressures on them and lack of any regulations on delivery apps lead to reckless behavior as these individuals try to make a living.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:22pm

• Andrew Yoon

  Why should e-bikes have speed governors when cars do not? A speeding car or truck is infinitely more dangerous than any e-bike. The proposed rule capriciously points the finger at those who are regularly victimized by the multi-ton metal death machines people carelessly drive 20 mph over the limit every day without consequence.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:22pm

• Kyle Watson

  This proposed 15 mph limit is arbitrary and capricious, based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:40pm

• Regina Beth Yates

  E-bikes don’t hurt people compared with cars, per the city’s own statistics. Why are cars still allowed to go 25mph?

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:43pm

• Dan Jones

  This proposed 15 mph limit is an arbitrary limit based on the notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. To enforce this rule will result in an unnecessary utilization of precious public resources. Moreover, to move the conversation about pedestrian safety away from the dominant issue problem—cars—is in appropriate. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 2:52pm

• L

  Echoing another’s comment: “This is a terrible solution to the problem. E bikes should be encouraged to go in the car lane and speeds should be slowed across the city to match class 1 + 2 ebikes (20 mph). … Build more infrastructure for non car based transport. Build more infrastructure for non motorized transport.”

  Additionally, I would like to emphasize that I’d rather the rule § 19-176 (Bicycles operation on sidewalks prohibited) be enforced than for some arbitrary speed limit to be applied. This is a real problem that endangers pedestrians.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 3:19pm

• Matthew Rossi

  This proposed 15 mph limit is ridiculous and based entirely on vibes instead of actual hard data. This idea that e-bikes (especially pedal-assist e-bikes) represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities, is not grounded in the reality of the data that continues to show motor vehicles as the overwhelming majority of pedestrian injuries and death. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but this ruling ignores the massive elephant in the room that motor vehicles have and continue to be the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets. Until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented, and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them, this will continue to be the case.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 3:22pm

• Marco Nieves

  This proposed 15 mph limit is arbitrary and capricious, limit based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 3:29pm

• Riccardo Alberto Santoni

  It’s egregious to impose such a limit on the form of transportation attributed to some of the lowest number of traffic accidents in NYC.

  To consider them as more dangerous than regular motor vehicles is a farce, causing community panic and discourse over a non issue. This will plainly discourage micro mobility for no good reason.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 3:30pm

• Graham Smith

  This is a ridiculous and alarmist rule. According to the cities own data, in 2023 there were 244 fatalities involving cars and trucks. During that same period there were 8 fatalities involving just bicycles. This is an imaginary problem – mopeds in bike lanes are NOT the same thing as electric bicycles. Limiting the speed to 15mph just makes them more dangerous to ride in traffic which is ALREADY the cause of 95% of road deaths.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 3:32pm

• Angel Umpierre

  This rule does nothing to increase street safety as the data overwhelmingly shows that a majority of injuries and deaths on city streets are caused by the drivers of cars and trucks. We can make streets safer if we lowered the speeds for all vehicles and created more wide protected bike lanes so that all users can travel across the city safely.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 3:36pm

• Nicholas Rogers

  The proposed 15 mph speed limit for e-bikes in NYC is both impractical and out of touch with how e-bikes are designed and used in both NYC and across the US. Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes (both legal and widely used) are manufactured to reach assisted speeds of up to 20 mph, while Class 3 models go up to 28 mph. These categories are federally recognized and form the backbone of e-bike regulation and sales throughout the country.

  Setting a 15 mph limit effectively criminalizes the use of nearly every commercially available e-bike on the market, including those legally purchased and operated under existing rules. It also creates an unreasonable enforcement burden and confusion for both riders and law enforcement.

  A 20 mph limit would strike a far more reasonable balance between safety and practicality. It aligns with current Class 1 and 2 specs, encourages compliance, and preserves the utility and viability of e-bikes as a real transportation alternative. Arbitrary limitations that ignore technological norms only discourage sustainable mobility and punish responsible riders.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 3:42pm

• Zach

  This law is terrible.

  I, and many of my employees, use Citibike e-bikes to commute to work. But the new speed limit imposed on e-bikes makes this a less efficient and more dangerous way to travel. The new inability to keep up with flow of traffic (as well as other, unregulated e-bikes used by delivery drivers that move at faster speeds, all within the bike lane) makes it harder to avoid erratic movements from cars and commute safely.

  These e-Citibikes are the best part of NYC. Please don’t take ruin them.

  Zach

  Comment added June 28, 2025 3:46pm

• Zach

  eBikes are honestly my favorite thing about living in NYC. Please don’t make them worse. I commute every single day on them.

  Zach

  Comment added June 28, 2025 3:47pm

• Samantha Perez

  Limiting e-bike speed to 15 MPH puts more people in danger than helping! Living in outer Queens with not much bike infrastructure, riding on the road next to cars feels much dangerous when going at slower speeds. Along with Citi Bike not lowering their prices while decreasing speed makes it feel twice as worse.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 4:09pm

• Elliot Cole

  Stop the fighting against bikes causing pedestrian injuries! Cars are the main issue and the we should instead focus on more punishment against drivers causing pedestrian injuries. Limiting e-bikes to 15mph would lead for more bikers injuries because of wreckless drivers.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 4:14pm

• Jason Kilkenny

  This proposed 15 mph limit is arbitrary capricious, and based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. A 15 mph limit will restrict e-bikes from being able to keep up with motor traffic, especially in areas where biking infrastructure is lacking or missing all together, and will incentivize worse bike riding behavior (i.e. riding on sidewalks). A better restriction would be the avg city speed limit of 20 mph. We should enforce existing rules and build better biking infrastructure.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 4:31pm

• Brendan Noah Clancy

  Hello,

  I am a queens resident. I oppose the speed limit for bikes. I think the speed limit for bikes should be the same as cars. Cars are heavier and more dangerous.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 4:32pm

• Eli

  I strongly oppose this rule change. E-bikes, stand-up scooters, and mopeds account for only 4.5% of all pedestrian injuries and 1.8% of all pedestrian fatalities between 2020 and 2023. There are no consequences for drivers who cause 95% of the injuries, not to mention pollution and noise. We need to incentivize biking not driving. Change the infrastructure to allow E-bikes to safely separate from cars and pedestrians, don’t punish people who choose a much safer and more sustainable way to get around.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 4:41pm

• nolan

  This proposal is designed to address a problem that does not exist and will have no beneficial effects to anyone.

  If you want to reduce traffic deaths and injuries, apply the 15mph limit to cars and other motor vehicles, which are responsible for 99% of deaths in the city which your own data shows.

  And enforce it strictly

  Comment added June 28, 2025 4:44pm

• Julien Marchese

  Please tell me why we are implementing an arbitrary speed limit on bikes while the vast majority of pedestrian deaths and injuries are caused by cars? I see misplaced priorities and trying to score political points instead of focusing on real issues.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 4:51pm

• John Randolph

  This is a nonsensical suggestion that does nothing to address real safety issues which are actually caused by cars, and flies in the face of logic as there is no other category of vehicles restricted to such a low speed as compared to their weight or frontal crash properties with pedestrians.

  All stories about bicycles are about something that “almost” occurred. This is because in reality pedestrians and bicycles freely mix on streets.

  Stories of serious injury or death with vastly larger and heavier cars and trucks are however statistically common, as we all know.

  Besides, all non electric bicycles go faster than any proposed E speed limit.

  It’s time to stop looking for meaningless bandaids that do not address public safety and are based on personal offense and poor logic.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 5:04pm

• John Randolph

  This 15 mph speed limit only for E-bikes is a nonsensical whack-a-mole to pretending to address public street safety.

  As anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the world comprehends, cars and trucks are vastly heavier, travel at higher speeds, and injure pedestrians and other street users at much higher rates than even the most reckless E mobility users.

  However, as is in vogue right now, the grumbler voting bloc is being courted to figure out how to slow down someone else instead of figuring out how to make their lives better, more efficient, or better for public safety.

  Besides the endless logical holes (all bicycles go faster than 15 mph, the complaints are about “almost” getting hit instead of actually hit like cars/trucks, etc), there is no framework suggested for mph leeway, calibration of speedometers, etc which would be required for a robust plan even if the limit being chosen were reasonable.

  No thank you, double congestion pricing instead and street safety will improve.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 5:14pm

• Adam Shaw

  This speed limit should be set for all vehicles on the road. Cars cause far more injuries and death, and it’s dangerous for a cyclist to be unable to keep up with other traffic on the road

  Comment added June 28, 2025 6:24pm

• T.S.

  I’m fully in favor of this speed limit. This is a great first step. E-bikes should also require registration and insurance.

  Next please change enforcement to be more aggressive for all moving violations on all vehicles. Pedestrians should not have to dodge bikes, cars, and trucks who all operate with zero consequences. The charges should be criminal for all drivers.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 6:56pm

• Chris

  I’m a father raising my family in Brioklyn, where I have lived for decades. Every day, I watch cars run red lights and speed down the street — those things make me feel unsafe. An e-bike speed limit does not. It’s arbitrary, pointless, and in a world that desperately needs solutions to climate change, it actively discourages a climate positive form of mobility.

  I am strongly against these speed limits, and profoundly confused and angry about their sudden implementation. I urge the city to repeal them.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 7:08pm

• Samuel R Handler

  The 15 mph speed cap rule is misguided and inappropriate. Safer streets would result from better enforcement of existing laws and improving infrastructure, not handicapping the speed of ebikes so they cannot keep up with traffic in areas where their only choice is to go with cars.

  Universal daylighting would be magnitudes more effective at keeping New Yorkers safe, but the current administration is more worried about preserving free parking than actually improving safety.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 7:27pm

• Donald Leistman

  It is absurd to put this speed limit on bikes and not apply it to cars, when cars kill and injure way more people on our streets. It makes no sense at all.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 7:32pm

• Alex Rodriguez

  Thank you for consideration,

  This proposed 15 mph is arbitrary and capricious, limit based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 8:36pm

• Jordan

  Limiting ebikes to 15mph decreases safety and slows traffic when bikers are expected to share the streets with cars. A far better tool to limit ebike speeds (and cars!) is timing lights to 15mph (which, by the way, cannot be hit in stride when the electric Citibike speed assist is capped at 15mph).

  Comment added June 28, 2025 9:38pm

• Binyamin Radensky

  Forcing a 15mph speed limit and the ebikes to ride in the street with cars is dangerous. I have had many times when a car came up behind me on a 1 way street that was sold small for them to pass and they got extremely frustrated and held the horn to get me to move out of their way. Unless we bring the cars down to 15mph as well, and use speed governor’s like you do on citibike, this will only put people in danger.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 10:43pm

• Rosa G Diaz

  I definitely agree. After getting hurt so many times, I think it’s about time there were laws for bikers too. Noone holds them accountable and they don’t pay insurance coverage to support the person they hurt. They are not supposed to ride in the sidewalk but they do, make sure they get a plate # so we can take pictures and report them too. Looking forward to a safer and cleaner streets.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 11:23pm

• Philip Reinhold

  A rule which targets bicycles for a lower speed limit than cars does not make sense, as the latter have more destructive power than the former. The only possible motivation for such a rule is to discriminate against lower income workers. Many object to running red lights, and other erratic behavior, as do I, but that is already illegal. New rules cannot substitute for enforcement.

  Comment added June 28, 2025 11:24pm

• Hazel Hulet

  There is no data to back up an arbitrary speed limit of 15mph. This would harm ebike adoption, increase pollution, cause more congestion, etc.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 12:10am

• Max Robins

  This proposed 15 mph is arbitrary and capricious, limit based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  Signed a Citi Bike Angel with 1200 rides, 1340 miles and NO accidents.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 12:32am

• Max Robins

  This proposed 15 mph is arbitrary and capricious, a limit based on the notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly tiny proportion of serious injuries. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles—the overwhelming majority of pedestrian KSIs—is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them.

  I am a Citibike Angel with 1200 rides over 1400 miles and no accidents.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 12:34am

• Charlie

  Hey, runner here. I dislike bikes as much as the next person, but this isn’t the way to do it. The issue is cars. We need to limit their speed in Manhattan; the current situation is unreal. Long-term plan needs to be removing these gigantic personal vehicles from the heart of the most walkable city in the entire country. Why are we still shooting ourself in the foot? They pollute our air and ruin our quiet, they make our streets unsafe to walk down, and they force micro-mobility like e-bikes into close quarters with pedestrians. We need to turn car lanes into bike lanes and offer incentives for able-bodied car drivers in areas connected to transit to swap to public transit and micro-mobility. We need to set a limit on both speed and vehicle size for all internal roads in Manhattan. We need to lower speed limits— and actually penalize those who chose not to follow the rules. It’s unsafe and is why people think of NYC as a shithole, honestly. So many of our problems stem from antiquated car-dominated urban planning.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 2:06am

• Caleb Edward Levine

  Bad idea.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 3:53am

• Dave Conte

  This proposed 15 mph limit is short-sighted, reactionary, and not based on any real world data. The OVERWHELMING majority of pedestrian deaths and injuries come from cars, not e-bikes. This is a stupid rule that will make things worse for people seeking an alternative to car travel. If you want to save pedestrian lives, do something about the countless drivers speeding and running red lights with no penalty. This proposed rule is a distraction from the actual causes of pedestrian death and ignores real world data. It’s insane that we’re even considering it.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 8:10am

• michael

  99% of all traffic related deaths and injuries in the city are related to cars. if mayor adams and jessica tisch cared about safety rather than fearmongering nonsense they would restrict the speeds of cars, not bikes. bikes are the cheapest and most convenient way of getting around, especially ebikes which allow the elderly and less able bodied people to take advantage of their benefits. arbitrarily restricting their speed because of culture war bullshit kills the baby in the cradle and is a stupid policy. and its even more egregious to use sammys law as a justification for this, given that sammy’s own mother has spoken out against this nonsense and said that it’s a gross misinterpretation of what she intended while advocating for speed limits. bikes dont kill or hurt anyone, cars do. enforce speed limits on cars, cars parked in crosswalks and bikelanes, cars running red lights, cars killing people. i know that yall at the DOT arent the ones responsible for this stupid decision and its 100% on the corrupt idiot we have in the mayors office right now, but yeah i hope this doesnt go thru and if it does that it’s reversed when adams loses to mamdami in november. thanks for reading!

  Comment added June 29, 2025 8:28am

• AW

  I fully support capping speed limits on e-bikes. For every good cyclist in the city, there are at least a quarter of an individual that does not know how to operate these vehicles. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to avoid a cyclist at de crosswalk. I’ve had numerous instances where a bike has almost run over myself or my dog.

  That said, cyclist speed is a drop in the bucket when it comes to concerns for pedestrian safety in the city. Drivers continually blow through red lights and disregard right of way. And while e-bikes and cyclists are a concern, the delivery drivers who blatantly speed through red lights are much more of an issue.

  While I support safety measures to cap e-bikes, it will do absolutely nothing on actual enforcement is taken against cars, delivery drivers, and the companies hiring.

  New York City should be a car, minimal, bike, heavy City. However some cyclists thinking that they do not need to adhere to the rules it needs to stop.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 8:46am

• Adam Fisher-Cox

  This proposal is not a serious effort to improve safety. First of all, regular bikes can easily go over 15 miles per hour. So why is that not a problem, but becomes a problem if that limit is reached with the help of a battery? Secondly, if speed is a danger to all road users, which it is, then the speed limit should apply to all vehicles. DOT is welcome to lower the speed limit to 15 for all vehicles wherever necessary to improve safety. Third, this rule makes people riding bikes less safe when they need to ride in car traffic, unless that car traffic is also slowed down. This proposal will force slow bikes to block car traffic, or car drivers will attempt dangerous maneuvers to get around them, decreasing safety for everyone.

  This is not a serious proposal, but rather a clearly targeted attack on e-bikes driven by a relatively small but loud minority of complaints. It’s entirely unenforceable, but even if it were possible to enforce it would do little to improve the safety of the streets as long as other, heavier vehicles can go far faster. If the perception of e-bikes is a problem because they often have closer proximity to pedestrians than cars, then it should be DOT’s job to design better bike lane and pedestrian interactions, set up green wave signal timing for bikes so that there is little incentive to run red lights, and build separate micro mobility lanes for mopeds and higher-speed e-bikes so they don’t need to mix with slower bike traffic.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 10:35am

• robin e.

  throttling e-bikes to 15mph would cause certain unsafe conditions, especially in regards to operating next to automobiles. as an occasional e-biker, i find that sometimes i need to accelerate for a short distance to evade more dangerous conditions caused by automobiles (which can kill, as opposed to ebikes, which RARELY kill other humans. )

  the recent 18mph that citibikes were throttled at is MORE than adequate.

  why would e-bikes have a speed limit that is less than autos, which, again, kill pedestrians at a rate nearly 100 to 1 compared to e-bikes.
  we already have laws preventing e-bikes from operating on a sidewalk.

  want to make e-bikes safer? add a helmet law.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 11:02am

• John Waggener

  The data is clear – cars kill people, not e-bikes. This is an arbitrary feel-good measure (for some). Limit car speeds. That will make an impact.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 11:14am

• Robert

  I am in favor of the 15mph cap on citibikes. I hope this is extended to all e-bikes. I’d like to see an argument limits them that isn’t pure whataboutism excusing the dangerous behavior of unregistered vehicles.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 1:16pm

• William Barker

  I am against lowering the speed limit for electrical bikes and scooters. The overwhelming majority of traffic deaths in the city are caused by cars not bikes. If any proposal in speed limiting is being proposed, it would only make sense if it were applied to the vehicles that actually kill people. The uptick in biking and electric biking in New York is a public boon not only for reducing traffic noise and improving air quality, but most importantly, for offering people safer, quicker ways to navigate the city. Traffic calming street improvements and more effective filtering are an effective means to reduce traffic deaths, which again, are the result of cars rather than bikes.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 2:18pm

• Cullen Chaffin

  Focus on the 2 ton bullets racing through these streets first. Cars are a blight and should be restricted before bikes.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 2:34pm

• James Mortin

  My partner cycles and as a pedestrian I find this hard to understand. She gets passed by much faster cars when she’s on a Citibike and our neighborhood doesn’t have a lot of bike lanes. she said she feels unsafe as a result. Personally, I also don’t see bikes going slower as improving my safety as a pedestrian. The issue is mostly deliverastas who I’m guessing are being underpaid and who go 30mph.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 6:03pm

• John Mandelker

  I write in firm opposition to the proposed blanket reduction of permissible speeds for e-bikes, e-scooters, and pedal-assist commercial bicycles to 15 mph.

  1. Disproportionate focus on a statistically minor threat. E-bikes account for < 2 % of pedestrian fatalities and roughly 4 % of pedestrian injuries city-wide; motor vehicles remain the overwhelming source of serious harm. A rule that materially hobbles micromobility while leaving the principal danger – cars and trucks traveling 25-30 mph, often well above posted limits – unchecked misallocates scarce enforcement capacity.

  2. Enforcement deficits already exist:
  • Motor-vehicle infractions. Red-light running, double-parking in bike lanes, and speeding by automobiles are pervasively under-ticketed. Lowering the e-bike limit does nothing to remedy this core safety failure.
  • Current e-bike limits. The NYS-defined 20 mph ceiling for Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes is seldom policed. Creating a stricter rule that cannot be meaningfully monitored – given the lack of plates, universal VINs, or reliable radar signatures – invites selective or arbitrary enforcement without improving compliance.
  • Illegal gas-powered mopeds in bike lanes. Combustion-engine mopeds already violate both speed and lane-of-travel statutes with near impunity. Their continued presence underscores that the issue is not the numeric limit but systematic under-enforcement.

  3. Economic and equity impacts. Tens of thousands of app-based delivery workers – disproportionately immigrant and low-income – depend on the current 20-25 mph assist to complete enough drops per shift to earn a living wage. A mandated 15 mph cap extends trip times by an estimated 25-40 %, effectively cutting hourly income while doing nothing to curtail reckless actors who will simply tamper with controllers or migrate to unregulated combustion mopeds.

  4. Climate and congestion. Micromobility substitutes for an estimated one-quarter to one-third of car trips under five miles. Slowing these devices erodes that mode shift, nudging short-distance travelers back to ride-hailing or private automobiles – exacerbating congestion, emissions, and curbside competition.

  5. Technological and regulatory mis-alignment. Federal Consumer Product Safety Commission rules, UL-certification protocols, and manufacturer designs are harmonized around 20 mph (Class 1/2) and 28 mph (Class 3) thresholds. A municipal 15 mph ceiling would strand existing inventory, confuse consumers, and impede retailers without clear safety justification.

  6. Better alternatives exist.
  • Targeted crack-downs on sidewalk riding, red-light running, and unregistered mopeds.
  • Expansion of protected bike-lane networks to separate modes by design, not wishful thinking.
  • Mandatory UL-listed battery standards to curtail the fire risk that – unlike speed – poses a demonstrably growing public-health threat.

  In sum, the proposal offers only a modest, hypothetical safety gain while imposing significant economic, environmental, and practical costs. I urge the Department to withdraw the 15 mph provision and redirect its efforts toward evidence-based, enforceable interventions that address the real vectors of harm on our streets.

  Respectfully submitted,
  John Mandelker

  Comment added June 29, 2025 7:18pm

• susan wiker

  I do not support this rule change, which won’t have an impact on pedestrian injuries and deaths. To truly reduce those, we need to regulate cars – speed limiters, increased daylighting, traffic calming measures, etc. In places where there aren’t any bike lanes, it is safer for the cyclist to match the speed of traffic. Capping ebike speeds to 15 would further endanger cyclists without having an impact on the intended outcomes.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 7:27pm

• Michael Streeter

  I am against this rule because, as others have already stated:

  1. There is no legal authority. NY VTL 1642 (26.(a)) prohibits NYC from establishing a speed limit “throughout the city” at a limit below 20 mph.
  2. A speed limit of 15mph would be dangerous to impose on ebikes that have to share the road with cars.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 8:33pm

• Motti karp

  Please don’t do this. I need e bikes to get around. Why not slow down the real danger, cars?

  Comment added June 29, 2025 8:44pm

• Jonathan Goren

  This proposed rule is predatory, unenforceable, and does not help solve the safety issue on our streets. If the City actually wants to solve street violence they need to commit to building out safe infrastructure for all users – not just focus on cars as they are doing now. This proposed rule does nothing for the thing that cause the disproportionate amount of causalities and injuries: cars. Instead of further marginalizing cyclists the city should limit all vehicles to 15mph, instead of just bikes. Don’t say you care about safety and then propose rules that pander to the extreme and are not based on any data. Again if the city actually wanted to prevent causalities they would limit all vehicles (especially the 2+ ton metal boxes that can KILL and MAIME the most vulnerable streets users) to 15mph, not just e-bikes.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 8:52pm

• Abby Schroering

  I am strongly opposed to the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is illogical and could put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.

  Statistically, people on bikes in New York City cause few crashes and almost no fatalities. People in cars and trucks cause tens of thousands of crashes, and kill more than a hundred New Yorkers every year. It is wildly illogical to require the former to travel at 15 mph, with potential criminal penalties, while, in the very same lanes, an SUV can drive 35 mph without so much as a speeding ticket.

  Criminalizing biking will not make us safer. It will discourage biking, which research shows makes streets less safe for all users, and it will put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record, the threat of deportation, or worse.

  To make New York City’s streets safe, we do not need to criminalize bicycling. We need the City of New York to accelerate plans to build dedicated, protected infrastructure for people on bikes, which has been shown to dramatically reduce biking on the sidewalk. We need to be using our legal authority to reduce the speed limit to 20mph for *every* vehicle on the road under Sammy’s Law. And we need the City Council to advance regulations on the delivery app companies that currently profit off requiring an unsafe pace of work for their delivery workers.

  I say no to special speed limits for cyclists and no to police crackdowns that unfairly target and punish people on bikes. Biking is not a crime!

  Comment added June 29, 2025 10:10pm

• Pedaling is good for you!

  I am writing in support of limiting the speeds of e-bikes, electric scooters, and pedal-assist commercial bicycles to 15mph. I also request that as long as these vehicles are permitted to be driven in cyclists’ infrastructure, a limit on acceleration also be implemented to bring these vehicles in line with the acceleration of regular bikers.

  I have been riding a bike in NYC on a daily basis for decades. Our streets and cycling infrastructure have never been more dangerous or chaotic.

  Those who claim there should not be such regulations for e-bikes “because cars are more dangerous” are conveniently overlooking the fact that there are not cars on our bridge bike paths and greenways. These paths used to be joyful and largely safe bike-riding havens, where a wide range of cyclists could be comfortable. These paths- and all cyclists’ infrastructure- are now overrun by aggressive and inexperienced drivers of powered vehicles. This is a great loss for our city and our safety.

  If e-bikes continue to be allowed to use cyclists’ infrastructure, they should be forced to slow down. Citibikes didn’t used to go so fast and they don’t need to now. For everyone in NYC, please slow them down.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 10:13pm

• Frank Isaacs

  This rule should not be passed. My e-bike is not the problem. In the first four months of 2025, e-bikers injured 18 people in NYC. In that same period, cars injured more than 2,000 people.

  This rule would induce people to take more trips in private cars, which are more dangerous, polluting, and expensive than e-bikes. When an e-bike hits somebody, they usually get banged up. When a car hits somebody, they are frequently maimed or killed, as just happened to an eight-year-old boy on Eastern Parkway.

  The solution is obvious: regulate the apps. Citibikers should be able to unlock 18 mph rides if they log several hours of safe rides at a slower speed. DoorDash, Uber Eats etc. can be forced to make delivery riders take photos of their ride every half-hour to ensure they aren’t using illegal scooters, and use GPS to penalize those who go the wrong way down one-way streets.

  A better future is possible, Mr Mastro and Mr Rodriguez. Please show the courage to confront the delivery apps that encourage reckless behavior by their contractor armies, not everyday New Yorkers using e-bikes to nimbly and safely navigate our streets.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 11:48pm

• IC

  The proposed 15 MPH speed limit on e-bikes is unnecessary, counterproductive, and ignores how people actually move through the city. These bikes are already speed-limited and designed for safe urban use; lowering the cap further would make them less practical, discourage ridership, and undermine the city’s goals around sustainable, accessible transit. Pedal bikes routinely exceed 15 MPH, and cars do so by far — singling out e bikes makes no sense. If safety is the priority, focus on better infrastructure and enforcement, not arbitrary restrictions on one of NYC’s most successful transportation options.

  Comment added June 29, 2025 11:59pm

• Hannah M

  I’m a parent who brings my small child to school by ebike. I have a speedometer. 15mph is slower than regular cyclists, and it’s a hazard to be forcibly slow when required to share a lane with cars.
  This feels like it’s intended to force my family out of commuting by bike – not keep us safe.
  As someone who spends a lot of time as both a cyclist and pedestrian worrying about the safety of my kid – I only encounter issues with cars, not ebikes. I don’t mind an ebike speed limit if it’s not arbitrarily slow.
  Please enforce traffic laws and cars constantly in the bike lane, and let bikes go up to 20mph

  Comment added June 30, 2025 6:12am

• Adrian Horczak

  If this speed restriction was for motor vehicles, I’d be all for it! People riding small, environmentally friendly e-bikes are capable of causing minimal harm. Just look at the data about what types of vehicles cause serious injuries and deaths. I am against this rule change because it will encourage people to use mopeds and cars instead of the less dangerous bikes and scooters.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 8:55am

• John N Bliton

  15mph is reasonable. E bikes are motor vehicles. There are many structural factors that make higher speeds on human powered vehicles less concerning – people who can pedal that fast are experienced in general.

  15mph is especially reasonable for citibike.

  The people who I worry about are the delivery drivers who make a living doing it – the speed limits may be harder on them. The speed limit should not apply to anyone with a motorcycle endorsement on their license who are riding in the road.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 9:00am

• MA

  I’m firmly against this proposal. Between 2020 and 2023, e-bikes and scooters were involved in fewer than 4.5% of all pedestrian injuries and just 1.8% of pedestrian deaths. Meanwhile, drivers are responsible for 95% of these incidents and face little to no accountability — all while generating noise and pollution. Instead of penalizing people who pick a cleaner, safer mode of travel, we should build better infrastructure that keeps e-bikes separate from both cars and foot traffic and encourages biking over driving.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 9:29am

• James LaVela

  I’m writing to oppose the proposed rule to reduce the speed limit on electric-powered micromibility (electric assist bicycles, e-scooters, and pedal-assist bicycles). It makes no sense that under this proposed rule, that bicycles and cars will operate on the same roads but will be subject to different speed limits and consequences. In 2024, car and truck drivers killed 113 pedestrians in NYC compared to one pedestrian death by collision with an e-bike. It’s nonsensical to ignore that under this rule, an e-bike would need to operate at a lower speed limit than a car on the same street. What we need instead is level-headed rules, such as a 20-mph speed limit for ALL vehicles on our NYC streets. The proposed rule is misguided and does not address actual safety hazards on our city streets, such as speeding SUVs, trucks, and other motor vehicles that have a significantly higher probability of killing pedestrians at unsafe speeds.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 9:57am

• Michael Shafland

  The 15mph limit is arbitrary, pointless, and hurts the climate and transportation goals of the city. I have never seen any real issues with e-citibikes. Cars kills 200+ New Yorkers annually. The city should look at requiring speed limiters for cars operated in NYC. Citibike allows New Yorkers to get around without causing congestion, pollution, or significant danger to other New Yorkers that cars do. We should be encouraging their use, not arbitrarily slowing them down. I urge the city to reject this rule which has no basis in fact, evidence, or global best practices.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 9:59am

• Jesse Morrow

  I bike daily from Brooklyn to Manhattan, sometimes on my personal bike and sometimes on a Citi e-bike. This rule change does not address the actual dangers of traffic accidents that pedestrians and cyclists face. Yes, there could be better behavior by many cyclists when encountering pedestrians at crosswalks, but this contributes to a tiny fraction of accidents. Cars drive through the city with impunity, running red lights and stop signs, and KILLING hundreds of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists every year.
  I oppose any rule change that singles out cyclists or e-bike riders if there is not a proportional action to reduce the needless traffic fatalities caused by cars in this city.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 10:01am

• Kristy Bar

  I bike to work in the summer. Ever since the change in policy, I’ve heard stories of people on regular pedal bikes, not e-bikes, getting criminal tickets when they weren’t even breaking a law. They were sitting at a traffic light or just biking along the road and they were stopped. I am now scared to bike to work. This policy change — which applies only to people on e-bikes — is dangerous and illogical. You can be arrested for pedaling faster than 15 mph on a 30-pound bike that doesn’t have a speedometer, while someone behind the wheel of a two-ton truck speeding 35 mph without even a traffic ticket.

  Criminalizing biking won’t make streets safer. It will discourage people from cycling, making streets less safe for everyone — while exposing thousands of New Yorkers to the threat of a criminal record, jail time, or even deportation just for riding a bike. Tell NYC DOT: No unfair bike laws! No special speed limit for bikes!

  Comment added June 30, 2025 10:46am

• Katya Willard

  Please do not limit e-bikes to 15 mph. If we want to limit speeds, please place speed limiters on cars, who are responsible for 99% of all traffic fatalities in NYC.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 11:03am

• Chris R

  I do not support this proposal. I use an e-bike to commute to my job and for many other transportation uses around the city.

  This is such a completely unserious policy proposal. The city’s own data shows that by a significant margin, the harms on our streets are caused by cars and trucks. People are being maimed and killed by cars and trucks every day, with nary a proposal from city hall to reduce their speed limit. There certainly have been injuries caused by e-bike riders and those should not be ignored, but this policy proposal makes it clear that the city does not want to do the real work in trying to reduce potential harms caused by e-bike riders.

  If this administration were serious about reducing pedestrian interactions with e-bike riders, then it would work to provide more grade-separated bike lanes where bicycles and e-bikes could ride safely separated from other modes.

  If this administration were serious about reducing the harms on our streets generally, then it would reduce the speed of car traffic across the 5 boroughs, push Albany for more speed cameras, force the NYPD to hold dangerous drivers accountable for endangering the lives of New Yorkers, implement universal daylighting, install protective bollards and jersey barriers to protect pedestrians and bikers, install chicanes in neighborhood streets, and many more options proposed by thousands of dedicated activists for many decades now.

  But it’s clear that the city’s proposal is to blame e-bikers for the harms of cars and trucks. This will only add to the dangers experienced by the city’s e-bike delivery workforce as they will continue to be in constant peril from the rampant car violence on our streets but also in double jeopardy as they are hunted down by NYPD (and handed over to ICE) for the terrible crime of trying to deliver food over 15 MPH.

  What a joke.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 11:10am

• Amy Chin

  I oppose this proposal. More efforts should be focused on improving safety for bicyclists including e-cyclists instead of measures that punish and discourage their use.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 11:18am

• Rolando Penate

  This proposed 15 mph limit is arbitrary and disproportionately punishes micromobility users based on the preposterous notion that e-bikes represent a unique threat to pedestrian safety, despite accounting for a vanishingly small proportion of serious injuries and fatalities. This is not to say that e-bikes cannot cause harm, or be used irresponsibly, but to elevate them above motor vehicles, which cause the overwhelming majority of pedestrian deaths and injuries, is to promote a moral panic not rooted in reality. Cars remain the dominant threat to pedestrian safety on our streets and will remain so until the legally required actions outlined in the Streets Master Plan are fully implemented and reckless drivers face consequences proportional to the danger they impose on everyone around them. Will this also reduce the speed limit for cars to 15 mph?

  Comment added June 30, 2025 11:27am

• Nathanael Lane

  I oppose this rule change. The proposal is disturbing in its irrationality. Going by the city’s own reporting, e-bikes are responsible for only a tiny fraction of pedestrian injuries and fatalities. If pedestrian safety were truly a serious concern, we would be working to take automobiles—dangerous, loud, polluting— off of the streets, and encouraging increased use of personal mobility platforms rather than trying to restrict them with convoluted rules like maintaining dual speed limits for different classes of vehicle on the same roads and bike lanes. The proper way to address e-bike safety issues is to change the infrastructure to allow all micromobility vehicles to safely separate from both cars and pedestrians.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 12:05pm

• Chris G

  The hypocrisy is on full display here. For all those saying getting hit by a bike at 15mph would kill someone, I wonder what a 2 ton, F150 with massive blind spots blind spots would do going 25 mph, which is the current city wide speed limit. People have no problem with cars blowing reds, speeding down streets, and stopped in the middle of crosswalks but lose their mind when a bike goes a little too fast. For those of us that don’t own a car and rely on a bike to get around and get to work, this severely impacts the time it takes to get anywhere. It makes the safer, more environmentally friendly, and healthier transit option not viable for long trips. Statistically, bikes cause 1/100 the injuries and even fewer deaths than cars according to the DOTs own data. So how about every street every vehicle is limited to 15 miles an hour? But of course we all know that’s ridiculous.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 1:39pm

• Geofrey Hill

  This is an arbitarty rule that targets bikes when cars cause orders of magnatude more incidents in our city. This is a political stunt to attempt to garner support from car owners without increasing safety. In 2024, 121 pedestrians were killed by cars. In that same time 3 were killed by vechicals that would be covered by this proposal. It is a hallow gesture while cars kill people.

  Comment added June 30, 2025 2:34pm