' It seems unfair' — e-bike riders protest NYPD crackdown and criminal summonses

Riding through the streets and mostly obeying traffic signals, hundreds of street safety and immigrants rights advocates flooded the Lower Manhattan Friday evening to protest the NYPD’s recent policy of issuing criminal summonses — rather than traffic tickets — to cyclists accused of running red lights, cycling recklessly or riding against traffic.

Many cyclists and a growing number of City Council members are calling on the NYPD to stop issuing summonses to cyclists for such offenses, noting that vehicles that run red lights don’t face the same penalties.

“ It seems unfair to me that cyclists should receive a higher penalty for doing the same thing that a person in a car would do,” Cecil Scheib, 44, who lives in the East Village said at Friday's protest, which began at Union Square before riders took to city streets and eventually City Hall. “If we want to encourage cycling, which is healthy, which is green, which is safer, which makes people happier, which is better for our tight city, we need to be thinking of how to make it more accessible and fair for people, not less accessible and fair.”

Immigrants rights groups also voiced concerns that many delivery workers risk stiffer penalties or possible deportation if they don’t show up for their hearings.

Speaking at a City Council hearing Thursday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch defended the new policy and said the ticketing is just about enforcing quality-of-life concerns.

“Every person is obligated to follow the very basic rules of the road when it comes to traffic safety. Compliance is not optional. We will not tolerate e-bikes driving recklessly running red lights, ignoring stop signs, driving on the sidewalk and riding against traffic,” Tisch said.

She argued that when a driver ignores a summons, the driver’s license could be suspended — but because e-bikes don’t require licenses, there is no similar way to penalize bad behavior.

Still, she said, she hopes lawmakers can find a solution.

“Far from being a war on e-bikes, this enforcement initiative is designed to keep these vehicles as a viable and sustainable transportation option in New York City,” she said. “There is a desperate need for legislative reform to keep pace with the reality on the streets and to the extent that has not happened yet it’s created dangerous conditions.”

Jon Orcutt, director of Bike New York, joined the protest,

“ We have all kinds of traffic laws in the city, and the police department enforces almost none of them,” Orcutt said. “I was in the Bronx yesterday and I rode past about 30 cars parked in the University Avenue bike lane. Like, come on. There's no strategy for safety."

But he said he agrees with Tisch that there should be better policies regarding bike safety.

“ I would support a thought-out strategy that was balanced and that was communicated to people. Maybe start with, like, no bikes on the sidewalks,” he said.

In late April, the NYPD began issuing stricter penalties for cycling infractions, particularly targeting e-bikes. A criminal summons requires the cyclist to show up for a court appearance, rather than paying a fine. The change in policy was first and extensively reported by Streetsblog.

Tisch recently reported to the City Council that so far this year, the NYPD issued nearly 251,000 summonses to drivers of cars, compared to 5,100 summonses to riders of e-bikes.