\u201cLet\u2019s just see what happens at the hearing first,\u201d Brewer told Streetsblog.<\/p>\n
The hearing will be one of the Council\u2019s periodic e-bike reckonings. In this case, a joint panel of members of the Transportation, Consumer and Worker Protection, and Public Safety committees will convene to hash out legislative proposals and probe officials about enforcement of existing laws.<\/p>\n
The decision by Menin to not include a Council bill to call for state-level e-bike registration is a notable shift from the Speaker and Brewer, who both represent parts of the city where some residents are very vocal about electric two-wheeled devices and have been advocating for registration for years.<\/p>\n
Mayor Mamdani also recently said<\/a> that he does not support a registration and licensing for e-bikes, which under state law are currently legal in three classes, none of which exceeds 25 miles per hour.<\/p>\n Mamdani, for now, is focusing his attention away from blanket e-bike registration towards continued enforcement and point-of-sale warnings about e-motos, the motorcycle-like electric vehicles that are already illegal<\/a>, like illegal scooters, and have been involved in several high-profile crashes.<\/p>\n Confusion across the Hudson<\/p>\n New Jersey passed its blanket e-bike registration bill<\/a>, the strictest in the nation, in January after a string<\/a> crashes<\/a> where e-bike riders were hit by car drivers and died, it is not clear from news reports whether the bikes were street legal or not. The state\u2019s bike advocacy, street safety, and immigration groups all opposed the bill. Bike shops have seen steep declines<\/a> in sales and rentals this summer since the law went into effect.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have two stores in New Jersey right now, they are both on the verge of closing down,\u201d said Larry Pizzi, the CEO of Pedego Electric Bikes. <\/p>\n A slow down in the sale of electric bikes may seem trivial, but to Pizzi, its a big problem not just for business but for those who benefit from the mobility and freedom a bike, electric or otherwise, can provide. <\/p>\n \u201cI view bikes in general like a social equity tool. People that can\u2019t afford a car, people that can\u2019t get a drivers license. This is real mobility. You take that away from communities, it\u2019s just devastating,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n And the rollout of the Garden State\u2019s regulations has been messy and confusing, advocates say.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Motor Vehicle Commission basically didn\u2019t have any plan for this until about two weeks ahead of the go live date. There\u2019s an estimated 300,000 e-bikes in the state that need to be registered,\u201d said Andrew Wilson, the president of Bike Hoboken, where e-bikes are a popular choice for commuters, parents and delivery workers. The Mile Square City is a Vision Zero success, with no traffic deaths since 2017.<\/p>\n As of Aug. 11, the Motor Vehicle Commission said it had registered just over 11,000 e-bikes. The New Jersey Bike Walk Coalition has been collecting stories from e-bike users through an online portal<\/a>. One commenter made an appointment to register an e-bike at an MVC location in Jersey City on July 18, a day before the grace period ended. But the location ran out of stickers for the bikes, so she had to leave with her bike still unregistered, she wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThey ran out of stickers. I told the lady enforcement starts tomorrow, what happens if I get stopped? She said she couldn\u2019t help me,\u201d the post reads.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s many more such stories. \u201cThere are some real face-palm moments form the state,\u201d said Wilson.<\/p>\n The Motor Vehicle Commission resolved the sticker issue, a spokesperson said, and now has all locations fully stocked. \u201cE-bike registration is available by appointment at MVC locations across New Jersey. Currently, there are more than 35,000 open appointments, and nearly all locations handling e-bike registration have next-day availability,\u201d said Commission spokesperson William Connolly. <\/p>\n Beyond the confusing rollout, the Jersey law only covers currently legal e-bikes, which are already regulated by the three-class system<\/a> (in New Jersey, Class 3 e-bikes were previously regulated as mopeds). But the Jersey law does not address illegal e-motos<\/a>, which are faster, heavier and more dangerous than e-bikes. <\/p>\n Instead, the law effectively gets rid of the three classes of e-bikes by categorizing all e-bikes, even low-speed pedal assist e-bikes, like mopeds, a move that now requires riders to have a driver\u2019s license or obtain an e-bike license; get the bike registered; display the registration number with stickers on the bike\u2019s fork; and have insurance.<\/p>\n Wilson says the law has created friction in ways that should\u2019ve been foreseeable. For example, parents who use a Class 2 e-bike designed for carrying children, like the high-end Aventon Abound<\/a>, are now in violation of the law.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though that has child seats on the back, it is illegal to carry passengers on the back of a Class 2. Parents are now breaking the law by bringing their kids to school on their bike,\u201d said Wilson. \u201cClass 2 and Class 3 now require motorcycle helmets. It just shows that the people who wrote this have no clue what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n In Jersey City, e-bikes are also a popular way to get around. One advocate wants city residents to be incentivized to chose low-speed e-bikes, rather than purchasing faster illegal e-motos. Any \u201cbike\u201d with a motor larger than 750 watts<\/a> or can reach speeds of over 28 miles per hour is an \u201ce-moto.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf we treat them the same, there is no incentive to buy the safer e-bike. [E-bike registration] actually harms safety because it groups safe e-bikes in with the dangerous devices,\u201d said Tyler Newcomb, the president of Bike JC<\/a>.<\/p>\n After two<\/a> high-profile<\/a> crashes, New York State Attorney General Letitia James issued a consumer alert earlier this month warning e-bike shoppers about the proliferation of actually illegal e-motos online<\/a> being marketed as e-bikes. And Mayor Mamdani\u2019s lawyers issued 42 cease and desists to online retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Facebook Marketplace, warning the e-commerce giants to come into compliance with the city\u2019s regulations. Newcomb wants New Jersey to follow New York in focusing legislative power and enforcement resources on the e-motos that are already illegal.<\/p>\n \u201cMost transportation advocates can agree that something needs to be done about high speed dangerous and illegal e-motos,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s important to nail down the difference between an e-bike and an e-moto, because the things people are worried about buy and large aren\u2019t e-bikes. The really dangerous high powered devices are already illegal, the focus needs to be on that.\u201d<\/p>\n Riding the fence<\/p>\n Menin has been at the epicenter of the e-bike debate since 2024, when she appeared at a meeting<\/a> of the E-Vehicle Safety Alliance, a group of Upper Manhattanites who want e-bike registration at the city level, and endorsed both registration and banning e-bikes from parks.<\/p>\n Later that year, then Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodr\u00edguez came out strongly against<\/a> the city-level e-bike registration bill, telling Council Members at a contentious hearing that it would cost the city $19 million to basically create a DMV within DOT. Soon after, politicians like Brewer and Menin began stressing that any e-bike registration would have to be at the state level. Both have flip-flopped in their public declarations of support regarding registering e-bikes. <\/p>\n The Dec. 2024 hearing was contentious, with members of the anti-e-bike E-Vehicle Safety Alliance booing and yelling over other advocates and officials who didn\u2019t support registration. <\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest problem is people don\u2019t talk to each other,\u201d said Paul Mondesire, a micromobility industry veteran who is now advocating for a more comprehensive approach to cycling safety. \u201cThey\u2019d rather yell at each other, and then tell elected officials to do something. The officials will then write a law, and law enforcement is charged with enforcing that law, but they don\u2019t want to do that job.\u201d<\/p>\n At an Aug. 3 press conference, Menin appeared to support state level e-bike registration and even brought up New Jersey as an example of potential action. <\/p>\n Those statements sparked confusion as to whether Menin would support a call to the state for a blanket registration law. But it is now clear she will not support such a resolution, according to Council staff. The Council will consider a resolution<\/a> from Brewer which calls on the state to pass Senate bill 7587<\/a>, which seeks to require license and registration for commercial e-bikes, like the ones used by the city\u2019s over 80,000 delivery workers.<\/p>\n On Thursday, Council Transportation Chair Shaun Abreu (D-Morningside Heights) introduced four new bills that will be part of the upcoming hearing. The uptown council member wants to stop false advertising of e-motos as e-bikes, require the city to use dynamometers to test the power and speed of a bike during enforcement operations, and for Citi Bike to chronicle crashes. Streetsblog is keeping a running list <\/a>of the bills being considered. <\/p>\n Still nothing is completely off the table, the Sept. 30 hearing is meant to be a starting point to hear from stakeholders and weigh all options.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Council will consider a range of legislative options to improve e-bike and e-scooter safety at the September 30 hearing before determining the best path forward based on testimony and public input,\u201d spokesman Henry Robbins told Streetsblog. <\/p>\n The hearing will take place on Sept. 30 at City Hall, specific time and location have yet to be announced. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On second thought\u2026 The City Council will not call on state legislators to pass an e-bike licensing bill…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,52479,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-323366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-promoted","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786995396_358_mamdani-illegal-e-moto-e1786072449662.jpg\")
Mayor Mamdani announcing his crackdown on online retailers who sell illegal e-motos. Photo: Ed Reed\/Mayoral Photography Office<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ebike-registration-example.jpg\")
This is what Jersey residents need to get in order to ride a low-speed e-bike in the sate. Photo: Tyler Newcomb<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dad-e-bike-setup.jpg\")
A Williamsburg dad\u2019s e-bike setup. Photo: Sophia Lebowitz<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/54197215032_cc188f8770_k.jpg\")
Members of the E-Vehicle Safety Alliance give the DOT Commissioner a \u201cthumbs down.\u201d Photo: John McCarten\/NYC Council Media Unit<\/p>\n