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New York City officials are preparing to roll out a new speed limit for electric bikes – and it’s not exactly a green light. Under the newly announced plan, the city will soon set a 15 mph (25 km/h) speed cap for all e-bikes, as part of a broader crackdown aimed at addressing rising concerns about sidewalk safety, delivery rider behavior, and e-bike-related crashes.
The plan was announced by Mayor Adams yesterday, as reported in the New York Daily News.
“I have heard, over and over again, from New Yorkers about how their safety — and the safety of their children — has been put at risk due to speeding e-bikes and e-scooters,” Adams said in a statement. “Today, our administration is saying enough is enough: We are implementing a new 15 MPH speed limit for e-bikes and e-scooters that will make our streets safer.”
The 15 mph speed limit would be the lowest in a major US city, and matches the speed limit for electric bikes in most of Europe, where legal e-bikes are capped at 25 km/h.
Previously, New York City had limited electric bikes to 25 mph (40 km/h), though the legal limit for e-bikes in most of the US is 28 mph (45 km/h) under Class 3 designation (e-bikes without throttles). For e-bikes with throttles, most states enforce a 20 mph (32 km/h) limit.
The plan caught e-bike rideshare companies like Lyft off-guard, with no apparent heads-up that the company’s shared e-bikes operated in the city could no longer be legally ridden at their current top speeds.
E-bike usage in NYC has exploded in recent years, fueled by delivery workers, commuting cyclists, and recreational riders. But with that growth has come a wave of backlash from residents, particularly over sidewalk riding, accidents, and the occasional viral video of reckless behavior.
Critics argue that a hard 15 mph limit could unfairly penalize law-abiding riders while doing little to deter the actual bad actors. The vast majority of e-bike-related injuries in the city involve cars, not other bikes. And for delivery workers, many of whom depend on their e-bikes to make a living, lowering the speed limit could mean fewer deliveries and less income.
According to the city’s own data, motor vehicles remain the overwhelming cause of traffic fatalities and serious injuries in New York. E-bikes, while more visible and thus often scapegoated, are still far safer than cars when it comes to pedestrian impact and urban street use.
Even so, enforcement has increasingly focused on micromobility. The NYPD has recently stepped up a crackdown on e-bike riders, with claims that bike-related enforcement outstripping motor vehicle enforcement raising concerns that e-bike regulation is being driven more by optics than by actual risk data.
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