Today is a big day for the future of e-bikes in New York City. A hearing starts at 10 a.m. You can file a written comment until 5 p.m. You can also send an email to rules@dot.nyc.gov until 5 p.m
Just for reference cause I was curious.
The average car speed in New York City varies greatly by location, but is generally quite slow. In Midtown Manhattan, the average speed has been recorded as low as 4.8 mph, which is slower than a brisk walk
15 mph speed limit on roads? That is genuinely the dumbest thing I have read in forever. 15 on mixed use paths is still a kind of low limit, but why on earth should ebikes have a different speed limit on shared roads? Am I supposed to brake down every slight incline next time I visit NYC?
Classic legislating the out group from the in group. The idea that the justification in the text is that “ebikes are heavier than normal bikes [so less dangerous]” while at the same time having a higher speed limit for 2 ton pedestrian killers is insane.
because they want people purchasing or renting vehicles, and paying for public transportation.
ebikes and regular bikes undercut city profits and private industries invested in new yorks current infrastructure.
making it difficult, pointless, or seemingly “unsafe and scary” is just another way for them to squeeze the already dry working man for a few more drops.
they want continuous subscribers, not “freeloadin communist lbrl sissies”
I don’t think there’s some nefarious “they” cabal here, certainly not an organized one trying to discourage biking. Occam’s Razor is there are a few different types of people supporting this Chief among them are just carbrained people who can’t fathom biking for transportation, who don’t realize how slow that is when they’ve only toodled on a 35 pound mountainbike recreationally at 10 mph. Then you’ve also got people who have almost been hit by a delivery scooter thinking “ebikes are a menace” solely because they’re new and something some “other” group of people uses, and so it’s easy to say “they must be stopped” while ignoring the crazy fast, way heavier cars they’re already desensitized to.
This makes no sense. A cyclist with a decent road bike can easily go faster than that.
I can go faster than that on the clapped out bike I bought when I was still in school. And I’m 45.
In the UK e-Bikes are limited to 15mph (in that the motor cuts out above that, so you can pedal faster if you want), and frankly that’s fast enough. Plenty of idiots can’t handle even that, and of course they don’t use helmets either because fuck having your brain inside your skull, right?
It also depends on your definition of e-Bike, because I’ve also seen it applied to what are basically motorbikes with an electric engine. I think that sort of thing should require a license and test to be allowed to ride in public.
When I was younger and in better shape my average speed was 35-40kmh (about 20-25mph).
15mph seems frustratingly and uncomfortably slow. But then again, I’m not terribly familiar with e-bikes. I know that some only help you pedal and others are basically motorcycles, so lumping them all together doesn’t make sense.
Good idea - if you also cap car speeds at 15mph
The state of traffic already does that…
Just build more and bigger sidewalks. In shenzhen and beijing, they often have 2 separated bike/moped lanes on either side of the road, a bike/scooter parking lane, and then like 20 feet of sidewalk you can also ride your electri moped on.
Take one or two of the traffic lanes to cover it. They have enough.
Canuck here. The city I live in only caps ebike speeds on the pathways at 20km/hr (Personally I only see riders going this fast when there’s no one else in sight. When they approach others on the pathways they slow right down. Most also slow right down when going around blind corners or bends). You can ride them on sidewalks but must have peddle assist disabled. When riding on the roads you must follow the rules of the road.
Could be an option for NYC. But limiting ONLY ebike speed on roads is not cool. Why should they be forced to go slower when big death traps can go flying past them??
My eBike (Turbo Levo) only does 20mph max. That’s acceptable. 15mph tho is bonkers. 18mph is fine. But 20 should be the limit.
RIght way to regulate ebikes is with speed limits in various areas. (not specs restrictions). 20mph in bike lanes with high bike and nearby pedestrian traffic seems about right.
Here in Vietnam, they have ebikes that do 115 kph (though 99% of city driving is like like 15 mph). If the rest of traffic is going that speed, shouldnt you be able to go that speed?
You can get that in America. You just have a level 3 classification and at that point it needs to be registered and insured. But has full road access.
You absolutely do not need a registration and license for a class 3 ebike in America. Maybe in your local jurisdiction, but that is definitely not the case everywhere. Not in Maryland at least, and we are one of the more heavy-handed regulation states.
Laws changed this year in California.
Fellow Canuck is talking kmph, that’s approx half mph
As a long time F1 fan. I know. But I don’t see a need to lower the top speed from where it is for Level 1 e-bikes.
Step 1: Limit e-bike speed
Step 2: Enforce minimum speed limit
Step 3: Profit
That’s all it’s about. Nyc has been engaging in shady practices for a while. It’s almost like an unregulated tax on the middle class. If you can afford a car, but have to use street parking, you’re going to get tickets. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, those meter maids have their quotas to fill. They’re getting greedier. Now that public roads are tolled the next natural escalation seems to be fining ebikes…
Next you’ll pay a few dollars to walk every few blocks.
We have jaywalking already but that’s more of a gray area tbh
16mph is the limitation in germany. If your bike is faster, you have to register it an pay tax, and cant use dedicated bicycle infratructure anymore.
16mph is exactly the speed where I’m fast enough but dont feel like I would die in a crash.
Everything above would require protective clothing like on motorcycles Imo, and that kind of defeats the purpose for ebikes for me. I want to ride my bike but don’t want to have to fight against wind and going up the hill.
If an ebike is as fast as a motorcycle, it should get treated as one.
16mph is the limitation in germany.
In my experience, a typical bike-friendly city in Germany will have 30 km/h limit for cars anyway (18 mph). NYC “official” speed limit is 25mph.
Yeah this proposal is reasonable. I wouldnt want to share my bikepath with old people driving more than 25kmh. They just dont have the reaction time to safely drive at speeds like that and even that is actually waaay to fast for the oldest. If you wanna go faster, use your muscles and/or drive on the road.
This proposal is for the road, which is why it’s crazy. 25kmh limit on a bike path is fine. A speed limit on roads that is lower for bikes than cars is insane, when the justification for pedal bikes having a higher speed limit is that they’re lighter than ebikes. Cars should have a 5 mph limit in that case.
if you want to go faster use your muscles
Okay but the fact that you can say this without it being a joke proves how stupid this limit is.
Not at all no. This used to be a sort of self regulating system. Peoples ability to go fast with muscles alone usually goes away around the same point where their cognitive abilities become a hazard to the rest of traffic. The difference is that most young people could easily go 18mph or more while old people wouldnt even get past 10 without e-bikes. Basically e-bikes allow people to go beyond their limits. While that sounds cool, in this case it isnt.
Yeah, much better for old uncoordinated people to go back to using cars.
Said literally nobody. 15mph is plenty fast for getting around :) The more important part is making biking more attractive by building better infrastructure for it and actively restricting car traffic by slowing it down or diverting it out of cities.
So limit cars to 15 mph. I’m down.
Or do you just hate bikes?
I like being alive and not being rammed by a 200kg combination of e-bike + human at speeds higher than 25kmh while riding my bike to work.
Whataboutism
The thing with pedelecs and 25km/h is complicated™
- we distinguish e-bikes and pedelecs
- self-driving electric bike
- bike with electric pedal assist
- motorized bikes are already a thing for a century
- motorbikes… (driving license; 16 years+; real number plate; but 20 years+ for >45km/h)
- moped has 45km/h limit and a kickstart pedal (driving license; 15 years+; insurance plate)
- mofa has 25km/h limit and (can have) real bike pedals (driving test; 15 years+; insurance plate)
- every motorized vehicle that can do more than 20km/h and doesn’t have a seat belt, mandates helmets
- bike paths are only for bikes
- outside of built-up area mofas were already allowed to use bike paths
- at least one state banned motorized vehicles from forests
It probably was always possible to drive them as moped/mofa, don’t think it was specified what kind of motor.
Pedal assist doesn’t just stop at 25km/h, it also decreases with higher speeds.
But the point is that pedelecs effectively count as bike and not motorized vehicles. That means somebody younger than 15 can drive them, but you have to be at least 10 to be allowed to drive on streets/roads. Helmets are only mandatory for <12 years old kids on bikes.
If you’re not limiting cars the same, you’re just anti bike. Fuck off carbrain.
It’s the same. Those are motor limits, not driving speed limits. If you don’t meet them you just have to follow the stricter regulations.
Theoretically if you get an e-bike classified as a motorbike you could do 200 km/h on the motor way, just not on bike lanes. It just needs to be registerd, insuranced, have a proper motorbike license, wear helmet etc … like it’s the case with a car where it’s seat belt instead of helmet.
The speed limits are the same, I still have to follow regular 30km/h speed limits with my pedelec when I could do 45km/h downhill otherwise. Unless there are special signs somewhere, but so far I’ve only seen those for trucks/buses. Bikes are also entitled to street parking and parking lots since those are rules for all vehicles, it’s just impracticable. There is only a general rule to park space-saving.
It’s not the same. Not exactly.
And, again, if we wanted to ditch cars completelh and have a lane for those alone, that would be cool, but we dont. So everything but cars is ghettoized, and im not okay stratifying tgat while cars are still in use.
- we distinguish e-bikes and pedelecs
Yeah but blinking bike lights are also illegal to sell in Germany because you realized that drunk drivers target fixate on them and you apparently found that ban to be a better solution than aggressively cracking down on drunks. So I don’t give much credence to the rational integrity of German vehicular law. I go faster than 16 MPH literally every time I get on my bike. A regular non-motorized bike, powered only by me.
It’s the exact same in the Netherlands. The pedal assist is capped at that speed, but nothing stops you from powering though that and going faster. Not that it makes any sense to do so for the average daily office commuter.
Right, I think most of these delivery ebikes are throttle-operated. And they’re trying to get to their destinations quickly, because a lot of people tip their delivery guys based on expediency. I wish we had curb-separated cyclepaths like in the Netherlands because it would make this debate so much more straightforward and speed-capping would be a simple yes, but in NYC delivery cyclists are usually rolling down 3-4 lane wide avenues among cars going 25-35 MPH (~40-55 km/h). Like almost all other bike problems, the issue is actually the cars.
You have hands
I dont think I follow. What’s your point?
As in like, “Damn, infinitesunrise got hands…”? :P
Yeah about 15 is fine to me but no lower. so 16 is fine and maybe over 20 gets to be a bit much but im fine anywhere along that range.
Is this for sidewalk or road? Road speed limit should be same as cars. On the road I try to go faster to be safer. If there are good bike paths, whatever the non-e-bike speed limit is, e-bike same. I don’t think bikes belong on the sidewalk in NYC, but here when I am on a sidewalk I think about 17mph is the top speed so yeah 15 seems reasonable.
This is not for sidewalk use, this is for road use. NYC has forbidden vehicles on sidewalks for a long time.
Literally never enforced, ebikes love to speed down sidewalks
Right. They should just enforce it.
= 24 kilometers/hr for those also wondering
This feels like it’s purposefully designed to kneecap the adoption of e-bikes by rendering all class 1 and 2 e-bikes illegal and making it harder/more expensive to buy new ones because they have to have bespoke detuning for the NYC market.
Did you read the bill? This is a road speed limit, not a mandated governor for the motor. It’s still super dumb, but it shouldn’t do anything to class 1, 2, or 3 sales.
Hmm… Well, I guess that’s not as bad, but it’s still a little inconvenient since it would require Class 1 and 2 ebike riders to more carefully monitor their speed instead of just riding all the way up to the assisted top speed knowing that they’re still in compliance.
IMO, it should be 20mph, but it’s a software limit. It’s nothing to “tune” it.
If you want to go faster, get a motorcycle license. The higher end ebikes are getting ridiculous. Their frames, tires, and brakes are not designed for the power and speed they can put down.
IMO, it should be 20mph, but it’s a software limit. It’s nothing to “tune” it.
You’re talking about vehicles that typically aren’t open source and don’t have a firmware update mechanism. There is no reason to expect they’re even possible to change without swapping out the entire controller.
That’s just factually incorrect. This 25 km/h limit has been law for years in (most of?) Europe. And it is totally possible to “jailbreak” virtually any common platform.
The real problem is that if you get into an accident you might get sued and dropped by your insurance company, and be held liable for all damages. No thanks.
People really need to stop buying those. The companies are parasites for reasons that go far beyond this.
The people who ride these ebikes are usually immigrant delivery guys who have little to no cash and not many alternatives.
And they’ll be fucked when the company involved stops updating their app. It will happen sooner or later.
I don’t think most delivery guy ebikes have an app… They’re a battery-powered motor with a throttle, that’s about it. There are low-cost mechanics who specifically service the delivery guys, a lot of the motorized parts are custom rebuilds by those dudes.
Like a Bafang? Because those controllers are completely customizable with open source tools. That’s how I built my ebike, and it can set custom assist limits.
This is a widely supported issue where I am, mostly because bike lanes are for self propelled vehicles and ebikes are sharing the roads with far heavier and faster vehicles that require licensing and insurance.
They fall between two stools though I am for licensing and insurance of them.
I don’t know if there’s a shadier reasoning behind it, and there very well might be, but IMO it’s a pretty reasonable speed limit for using bike infrastructure. Most people on standard bikes could only ever get to those speeds with a decent amount of effort. Many wouldn’t even be able to.
If you want to go that fast, you should get in the car lanes with the other dangerous people.
Do you live or work there? I see ebikes being used on sidewalks by delivery guys all the time. Limiting speeds makes sense for NYC IMO
I lived and worked there for 15+ years, was a daily cyclist (Non-motorized). eBikers do ride onto the sidewalk at the very start or end of their trips. But they’re already not allowed to do that - NYC has long had a blanket ban on riding any vehicle on sidewalks. The city should consider actually enforcing their existing rules before making new (IMO very stupid) ones. This is just reactionary pandering.
My lowly non-NYCer opinion is that that sounds like a reason to crack down on sidewalk riding, rather than the speed.
Why not both?
For the reasons I outlined in my previous comment: forcing NYC e-bikes to be governed to a different speed than e-bikes everywhere else in the country (thus requiring selling a separate NYC-specific model) would be bad for e-bike adoption.
Why not just add speed limits to areas where higher speeds are an issue? That’s been the approach to cars – no car is limited to 140 kmh despite speeds above that are illegal pretty much everywhere…
Regular bikes can easily go above 15 mph as well, so why should this only affect e-bikes?
Its basically to define it because of where it can be used. Like motorcycles can’t be driven where bikes can.
ebikes are frequently heavier and are frequently ridden on sidewalks in NYC.
Maybe put in some proper bike lanes so riders don’t feel they need to ride on the sidewalk? 🤔
They do so even with lanes. it’s typically delivery drivers doing this.
Love it here on /c/fuckbikes
This thread is full of people who have never been to NYC and think this cap is somehow a good idea and not a death sentence both figuratively for micromobility and literally for e-bikers who have to deal with much faster car traffic.
Is it a road speed limit? or a limit on bike power? If the former, it’s not so much an attack on micromobility. Can take the road to pass or go faster. The cars can physically do 120mph, but have NYC speed limits.
It is a ROAD speed limit for ebikes. It’s like no one responding to you read the bill. It is not a mandated governor for ebikes, and has nothing to do with sidewalks or bike paths. The speed limit for cars is 25, for human powered vehicles is 25, but they want to limit ebikes because “they are heavier” and implied therefore more dangerous. It is a crazy bad law.
It is the latter, a limit on bike power.
read the proposal. It is definitely vague, but I think it means “normal” traffic speed limits.
You’re right, it is indeed a legal speed limit and not a physical throttle requirement, thanks for getting me to actually scrutinize it. However I still strongly disagree that this is not an attack on micromobility: A 15 MPH cap is simply not safe for NYC streets where traditional cyclists, cars, trucks, busses, etc are all traveling > 20 MPH. This bill is designed to score quick points for Adams with reactionary New Yorkers who only encounter ebikes when they’re zooming down the sidewalk at the start or end of their trips. It will be selectively enforced, just like the existing ban on riding on the sidewalk is. A far better solution would be to just actually enforce the existing ban on sidewalk riding, and not selectively.
Conservative leaders in NYC and NYPD pull shit like this all the time: Selectively / rarely enforce a sensible law -> Dum-dum voters think no such law exists because they continue to see violations -> Propose new law to “fix” the issue -> Easy votes from dum-dums -> Selectively / rarely enforce the new law -> Wash rinse repeat. Everyone loses.
It’s not even about nyc. Haven’t been there in a while myself.
Its about car brains who see cars as entitled and everything else as the enemy. The mods really need to get bulk bans going.
I’m a former moderator of /r/nycbike on reddit and I can attest, a lot of cyclists hate ebikers because instead of seeing an ally against car culture they just see one more “other” with whom they have to compete for limited bike infrastructure space, who they feel goes too fast in those spaces, and they think isn’t enforced against enough. I hate to say it but just like most groups of people, a lot of cyclists aren’t able to step back and appreciate a shared struggle. They don’t realize that they’re doing the exact same thing to ebikers that car drivers do to them. They don’t realize that the limited space they’re fighting over is an arbitrary restriction. They don’t realize how legislating against ebikes is just a wedge, the tip of which is destined to cut them too once driven too far. So while I’m sure a lot of the detractors in this thread are legitimate car brains, I wouldn’t be surprised if just as many if not more of them are subscriber cyclists who maybe need a reality check.
That attitude is crazy prevalent. I ride an ebike in DC, and after passing a guy on his acoustic bike, he caught up to me to bikeshame me for riding “a motorcycle”, and complained how he almost gets run over by ebikes every day (I was nowhere near him, I think he thought he was being funny). Ok, sure dude. I’m sure it’s ebikers almost run over you every day, not the thousands of distracted drivers.
The worst part is the dude ran two stop signs to catch up to me, while wearing no helmet. I’ve never seen such a clear posengeur who couldn’t deal with being passed. I am not your safety problem, bro.
Frustrated with the general overwhelming flood of car brains on every post here. How every comment is how bad cyclists are or the pedestrian who got turned to a fine red mist was actually at fault etc.
That sounds pretty fair to me. Very few regular bikers go faster than 20-25. Especially with more weight, like delivery or cargo bikes, and also especially with the e-motor support there is a lot of weight and power behind those bikes.
And bike lines are usually built for “regular” use, not high speed. All the curves, break distances etc. get planned with around that speed and not a whole lot more.
The original purpose of supporting disabled people who can’t use a regular bike is still served and people don’t have to be afraid of maniacs going 50mph in places where “common sense” would already advise them not to. If you’re using a cargo bike, that also still works and you get not so gently instructed to watch the speed with your cargo.
Maybe they could do something where to use a bike lane, it has to be speed capped. Idk.
It’s not for bike lanes, the law is for “NYC Streets”. It’s a very dumb limit.
very few[not none] regular bikers go faster than 20-25
Therefore
limit electric to 15
Uh
Therefore
So you want to go 80mph on a bike lane?! That would be crazy!
;)
Why do you like cars so much?
I don’t like cars.
But I hate people who get their basic reading comprehension and logic wrong.
Yes that’s what i was doing. Disagreeing with you is illogical, thats what that word means.
Pretty sure they mean 25 kph which would be 15 mph
We were talking about mph elsewhere and no units were specified. They use mph elsewhere in same comment. Wtf is your motivation here?
Anyway, this is an okay argument for stopping multi ton steel behemoths. I support it.
My motivation is to show a possible perspective in an ambiguity. I’m like that.
though i agree with regulation, i am a 20mph limit guy; however i dont live in new york (and have never been). if 15mph suits the city, i see no problem with it.
hopefully the mayor has taken a few days to ride around in an ebike to know what he is signing (though i highly doubt it)
15 MPH does not suit the city. I was a daily cyclist in NYC for a long time and 15 MPH is generally the minimum speed you need to be going to keep safe in traffic. Capping a small motorized vehicle to 15 MPH while cars are zooming past at 30+ is not good.
ooohhhh, i didnt realize the cars had a faster speed limit. yeah, thats kinda fucked up.
