During the second New York City Democratic Mayoral debate in June, among the topics discussed by the candidates was Vision Zero, a movement with the goal that no person should die or be seriously injured in a traffic crash. The initiative began in Sweden in 1997 and was brought to New York by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014.
The debate moderator, WNYC’s Brian Lehrer, asked the six candidates, including the eventual Democratic Party nominee, Zohran Mamdani: “The city says there were 252 traffic deaths last year. That’s a far cry from zero as in the name Vision Zero that Mayor de Blasio gave to the city’s initiative on this. What would you do to get us much closer to zero traffic fatalities?”
The candidates’ answers varied. Some called for more alignment with the Department of Transportation, others tossed around ideas for speed limits on e-bikes, while others talked about the fears instilled in them and New Yorkers when an e-bike goes whizzing by.
While not in consensus by any means, the responses revealed a growing discomfort with the rapid rise of e-bikes on New York’s streets, and what to do about it. As delivery workers, commuters, and bike-share users have embraced e-bikes in record numbers, City Hall has struggled to respond—pivoting from plans for progressive regulation to reactive police enforcement. At the heart of the debate is a broader question: When street design falters and new mobility modes emerge, who gets blamed, and who bears the consequences of a system in flux?
E-bikes have not been in the city long. In 2013, Mayor Bloomberg’s administration banned them, citing the bikes as too heavy, too fast, and too quiet for pedestrians to hear them coming.
By 2020, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, after months of pressure from a growing delivery industry propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, made pedal-assist e-bikes, throttle e-bikes, and e-scooters legal. Delivery workers welcomed their legalization, and now were incentivized to adopt the faster technology to compete. Private e-bike usage and pedal-assist bikes also became preferred transit options for commuters and recreational riders. Since 2021, CitiBike, the city’s popular bike-share system, tripled its e-bike fleet.
Since 2020 backlash against e-bikes has only grown, with action groups flooding community board meetings, demanding change. These groups tapped into a citywide sentiment: the streets are dangerous, and that e-bikes are responsible for it.
Adams Administration: A Vision Loses Clarity
In January 2024, Mayor Eric Adams proposed to improve New Yorker’s “quality of life”—shorthand for the feeling of safety on New York’s streets, encompassing e-bikes, homelessness, and the presence of police officers. Adams initially wanted to create a new department: a “Department of Sustainable Delivery” that would push New York into the forefront of transit-prioritizing public safety of pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and delivery workers. Then-Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi led the charge, endorsing the benefits of bicycle-based delivery while advocating for safe streets. The city seemingly had both a leader and a plan.
How it feels to dodge e-bikes in NYC: pic.twitter.com/b0Zzbfk9OR
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) June 16, 2025
Nine months after the first mention of a Department of Sustainable Delivery, Adams was indicted. Joshi and others in the administration resigned amid the scandals, while many in Adams’s inner circle, including former Police Commissioner Edward Caban and Chief Advisor Ingrid Lewis-Martin, had their apartments raided by federal agents and later resigned. The Department of Sustainable Delivery was stalled.
Following the scandals, a longtime opponent of the Prospect Park West bike lane, Randy Mastro, was named the new deputy mayor. Under his tutelage, the administration quietly changed the policy on red light tickets given to bicyclists. Instead of a class B summons that historically would be given to a cyclist in violation, requiring the cyclist to go to traffic court to contest the ticket, they would now be issued a class C summons, bringing them into criminal court. (This has other repercussions for immigrant delivery drivers, given reports of the Trump administration’s ICE agents targeting criminal courts.)
The backlash against cyclists did not stop there. On June 4, the Adams administration announced a new e-bike and scooter speed limit of 15 miles per hour.
Difficulties and Shortcomings of Design-Oriented Solutions
Many experts agree that coming up with an infrastructure or design-based solution for how to integrate e-bikes safely may not be possible. “When you’re planning around bicycles, it is very hard to slow them down by design and would be very annoying as well—it may turn people away from cycling,” said Can Sucuoglu, a data scientist specializing in urban mapping.
Other experts point out there may be solutions for some e-bike users—but not all. For instance, an e-bike rented through CitiBike could be equipped with a speed governor, limiting its top speed. Trent Lethco—an expert in mobility, public policy, and crowd movement—intimated this would not go over well for delivery drivers.
If CitiBikes can be updated remotely to limit their speed, the delivery industry would be the foremost affected group by the speed limit enforcement. “There would be more individually targeted groups by race,” said Gareth Coco, a founding member of the New York City Bicycle Messenger Association.
“[The NYPD] is a blunt instrument used for something that requires a nuanced answer,” Lethco added.
As the e-bike debate continues, lost in the statistics is the fact that automobiles overwhelmingly account for traffic-related deaths and injuries. Between January 1 and June 27, less than 5 percent of crashes that injured or killed pedestrians involved bicycles or e-bikes. Serious pursuit of Vision Zero would require a more calculated approach than speed-stings on the city’s most vulnerable—and a renewed focus on vehicular traffic.
As for the state of the Department of Sustainable Delivery: On June 27, it received $6.1 million in funding through the city’s new Fiscal Year 2026 Budget. Aside from including 60 positions for regulation and enforcement, no other details about the department’s role were revealed.
Quinn Gregory is an architectural designer and urban researcher based in New York City, a recipient of Pratt Institute’s William “Bill” Menking Travel Award and a U.S. Fulbright Scholarship, focusing on reimagining public spaces and advocating for safer, more equitable streets.
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