By the way—have you been listening to the Hell Gate Podcast? New episodes drop on Friday. For the latest on the mayor's race—like Jessica Ramos defecting to Team Cuomo—you won't want to miss it. You can listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
There's one issue Mayor Eric Adams says he can't stop hearing about at every town hall he goes to. No, it's not subway safety, and it's definitely not NYPD collusion with ICE officers. According to the mayor, the top concern of New York City's denizens is that e-bikes are out of control. And luckily, Adams says he has a solution: a 15 mile-per-hour speed limit on e-bikes and scooters.
One big problem: It's unclear whether or not the City's Department of Transportation actually has the authority to enact a speed limit without legislation passed by the City Council. The Mayor's Office is arguing that Sammy's Law, which gave the City the ability to lower the speed limit for cars, allows the DOT to lower the speed limit for e-bikes. If the mayor has this power, he has until now refused to truly exercise it, because in the year since Sammy’s Law passed, he has lowered the speed limit on less than 1 percent of all City streets.
But the City Council doesn't seem to be on board with the mayor's new policy. "E-bike riders are people that deliver food to our homes, and they have families as well," Speaker Adams said at the first Democratic primary mayoral debate on June 4. "As the mayor normally does, he does not collaborate with the City Council. Had we done that collaboration together, we might have come up with a different solution other than 15 miles [per hour], which I believe is a penalty."
The little tiff between the mayor and the City Council over this arbitrary e-bike speed limit is heating up: On Monday, the mayor's account posted a video on X blaming the council for sitting on legislation regarding food delivery app companies, in which he also pushed for the 15 mph speed limit.