New York City is leading in the use of pedal-assist cargo bikes to replace delivery trucks
New York City stands out for its authorization and guidance around the use of cargo bikes, or commercial pedal-assist bicycles, for deliveries. While human-powered cargo bikes were legal on some streets at the time, starting in 2018 New York City worked to clarify the legality of pedal-assist delivery bicycles. After a successful Commercial Cargo Bike pilot program in 2019, cargo bike deliveries have grown significantly, and in 2024 New York City DOT authorized the operation of commercial pedal-assist bicycles in both bike lanes and travel lanes.
According to the results of the pilot, two cargo bikes may replace up to a delivery van or small box truck’s worth of cargo, reducing emissions, improving safety, and reducing congestion compared to delivery trucks. Commercial cargo bikes have a maximum speed of 15 mph (some models, including those used by Amazon, have a maximum speed of 12 mph), and in dense urban areas they can operate similarly to postal trucks, on predefined routes with frequent stops. Unlike postal or delivery trucks, however, cargo bikes can park perpendicular to the curb to save space for other vehicles or transfer cargo in dedicated bike corrals, although, unlike bikes and scooters, they can never park on the sidewalk. Commercial cargo bikes improve street congestion, safety, and sustainability, and rules governing them should be predictable and reduce barriers to their use in order to achieve the greatest benefits of micro-freight deliveries.
Misunderstood classifications discourage the growth of safe micromobility
The chart above, combined with examples of day-to-day impacts of e-bike classifications in New York City and New Jersey, illustrate the challenges and complexity of the rules governing micromobility in our region.
Streets are less safe when dangerous vehicles are in the mix with safe ones, when riders can’t easily understand the differences between legal and illegal devices, when what is legal is not aligned with what is safe, and when users of safe devices are discouraged by onerous registration requirements or the fear of penalties. The debates around Class 3 e-bikes in New York City and registration for motorized bikes in New Jersey are complicated by the fact that many of the most dangerous devices on the road fall outside of these legal categories. Last month, Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued cease-and-desist orders to retailers of scooters over 100 lbs or 20 mph, e-bikes with motors exceeding 25 mph, and mopeds without visible identification. Not only are these devices dangerous, but consumers may unknowingly purchase illegal e-bikes and scooters when misleading advertising is coupled with confusion around what is street-legal.
Conflating safe micromobility devices with these illegal devices gives e-bikes and e-scooters a bad reputation and can result in legislation such as we have seen in New Jersey, which discourages even safe and legal micromobility in the pursuit of taking illegal devices off the streets.