Vickie Paladino is supporting new legislation that hurts Queens residents because she claims “migrant gangs” are using ebikes to commit crimes. Although this crime conspiracy theory has no connection to reality, bill 606 is unfortunately very real, and you don’t have to be a racist who hate kids biking who are supporting this poorly written legislation.

Luckily you can submit your thoughts to the City Council directly by emailing it to testimony@council.nyc.gov or via the Council’s website up to 72 hours after the close of the hearing (which is this Friday afternoon). 

Would 606 ebike registration fix the problem?

The majority of complaints in Eastern Queens attributed about ebikes actually are for mopeds or motorcycles, both of which must be registered, have license plates and require a driver’s license.

It’s absurd to attack the the much lighter, lower powered ebikes when someone complains about a heavier motorcycle or moped. By definition, ebikes can’t rip around the neighborhood causing noise pollution with their loud engines, everything night we hear Motorcycles doing that. In Eastern Queens a Class B Moped is much more common than an ebike, especially anything going quickly.

We don’t expect every pedestrian to know what class ebike or moped is that just passed them on a street cornder. But we do absolutely expect the NYPD and politicians to understand the differences when they’re enforcing or writing the laws. If the NYPD doesn’t enforce the laws already on the books (for the worst offenders), then why would we create more laws against people who are not the problem?

Is the legislation racist?

Although the proposed ebike registration doesn’t call out specific races, it is meant to attack mainly our Asian and Hispanic neighbors. Although 60% of people who ride a bike in New York City are people of color, the vast majority of food delivery workers in New York City who use an ebike and are immigrants. We’ve even seen that at battery charging stages the preferred languages are Spanish and Mandarin.

How will this legislation attack poor people of color?

President-elect Donald Trump said that on day-one of his presidency, he will “launch the largest deportation program in American history.” Using the the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (previously used to round up Japanese, German, and Italians during World War 2), without a hearing Trump can target individuals based only on their country of birth. Going further, Trump said he will attack birth-right citizenship, so even Americans born in the United States could face deportation if their parents were not US citizens. We saw this logic used against Wong Kim Ark, who was not allowed to re-enter the United States even though he was born here since the idea of birth-right citizenship was questioned during the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

If the 606 ebike registration is made into law, anyone undocumented (or possibly with citizenship only through birth) could be faced with two options:

• Register your ebike and give Trump’s ICE a list (mainly) of immigrants to round up
• Don’t register your ebike and risk being brought to jail where Trump’s ICE department is waiting

It’s estimated that one million New York City homes have a least one undocumented immigrant and millions more have at least one member who has birth-right citizenship.

Can’t ebike Delivery Works Just Get Another Job?

If the 606 ebike registration becomes law and puts so many people at risk, you might think those people would just find other jobs. Unfortunately those targeted by this registration may have no other choice. From the Journal of Urban Health, Zoey Laskaris of Queens College and her collaborators found:

“Of 1650 respondents, 66.9% reported that food delivery gig work was their main or only job (i.e., fully dependent). About 21.9% and 20.8% of respondents reported being injured and assaulted, respectively. Injury and assault were more than twice as prevalent among two-wheeled drivers, in comparison to car users…The NYC-DCWP also found that the rate of fatal occupational injuries among two-wheeled food delivery gig workers (36 fatalities per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers) far exceeded the equivalent rate in the construction industry (7 fatalities per 100,000 FTE), which has, historically, held the highest fatality rate of any industry in NYC. In addition to fatal injuries, the study revealed a high prevalence of non-fatal occupational injuries and assaults, especially among electric bike (e-bike) and moped drivers.”

In addition to the incredibly high injury rate, the actual pay that food delivery works make is low. Last year new legislation raised their pay to $17.96 an hour (37,356.80 per year).

It’s somewhat telling that our politicians are looking to make life harder for this population, instead of making it better for them.

What would this program look like?

The best guess to how this program will work is to look at similar roll-outs.

• Santa Monica – bike registration was repealed (with the support of the Chief of Police) after it was found to be too costly
• Fort Lauderdale – 86% of bike license tickets went to African-Americans while almost none were handed out in white neighborhood
• San Jose – bicycle licensing was canceled since the $636 in bike license fees wasn’t worth the time of the cops and firefighters to administer the program

Since about 42% of New Yorkers ride a bike, of which 10% are ebikes, then we can assume about 336,000 registrations are needed just to capture current riders. The NYC ID program is on a similar scale, which cost an estimated $8.4 million in its first year, which in today’s dollars would be about $11 million. Enforcement of a mandatory program with full license plates would probably be much higher. In addition, the City would need to spend millions on lawsuits since the 606 ebike registration goes against state law.

Do you really want your taxes to go up for something like this?

What are better options?

The 606 ebike registration is racist, costly, and will probably be repealed in disgrace after roll-out like other cities. What are smarter options to improve street safety?

• The NYPD should start confiscate motorcycles with missing, defaced, or loose license plates. Removing scofflaw unlicensed 300 pound Yamaha or Harley-Davidson will decrease the worse, most dangerous driving. They could easily start on Bell Boulevard.
• Instead of going after food delivery riders, we should go after the delivery app companies that exploit their riders so much that they are forced to ride dangerously to cut corners. This industry could be taxed to create a fund that cover all injuries related to ebikes (both if pedestrians are injured or when riders are injured).
• Close the “Instacart Loophole” which currently allows third-party grocery delivery services to pay under the minimum wage for restaurant deliveries, increasing their pressure to ride quickly.
• Create a contract bidding process for delivery app companies, like was recently done for Department of Sanitation’s Waste Carting Zones
• New York City should follow New York State law and daylight all intersections so pedestrians can see ebikes (and drivers) better to avoid crashes
• Create a city-wide network of protected bike lanes so ebike users have a safe place to ride instead of competing with pedestrians and drivers.

Most importantly, we’d love our city council members to stop partnering with bad-faith actors, just because they’re pleasant behind closed doors. Legislation like this is set up to create a chilling effect for all cyclists to stop people from riding, and we know that the best way to increase cyclist safety is to have more cycling riding. In its current state, the 606 ebike registration would require licensing for electric wheelchairs and any electric bikes for seniors, isolating them or forcing them to drive when it’s no longer safe for them to.

We in the street safety community know this bill is a lie. It will only make the streets less safe while it will be very successful in attacking our communities of color. No one’s grandfather should be harassed or deported due to this poorly thought out legislation. Please join us to kill this legislation and work with us to actually fix the problem by contacting the City Council and help them understand how we can do better than this.

Email testimony@council.nyc.gov or via the Council’s website before this Friday afternoon and email your own City Council Member to tell them to support smarter legislation.