BY EMILY NIXON
The New York (NY) City Council heard a record 23 bills calling for reformed legislation to regulate delivery corporations, the sale and use of Class III e-bikes, and protection for delivery workers, among other aims on Sept. 30 in a packed seven-and-a-half-hour hearing at City Hall. This hearing was held in response to multiple recent deaths involving electronically powered mobility devices, such as e-bikes.
“No New Yorker should have to wonder if their next commute will be their last. No New Yorker should have to worry about their loved ones coming home at day’s end,” said Council Speaker Julie Menin. “No New Yorker should have to choose between getting where they need to go and feeling safe on our streets.”
Menin said that addressing the issue of street safety will require a “multi-pronged effort with enhancements in technology, stricter enforcement of existing laws, and robust protections for workers.”
One bill would make delivery companies responsible for ensuring their deliverers meet city licensing requirements, relieving the New York Police Department and Department of Transportation of some of the burden for enforcement. Another bill would require delivery companies to obtain a business license from the NY Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (NY DCWP) to operate.
Other bills would require delivery companies to maintain liability insurance for their workers, as well as monitor and notify their workers when they utilize unsafe street behaviors, such as running stop signs or red lights on e-bikes. The data collected by companies about such behavior would also have to be given to the NY Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (NY DCWP)
The Regional Plan Association, a New York-based nonprofit civic organization that focuses on quality of life issues, opposed the proposal to monitor delivery drivers’ routes because it “inappropriately targets individual delivery workers rather than companies,” according to a press release.
The agencies in attendance and city council members continuously reiterated that they would also focus on providing protections to delivery workers while further regulating the delivery space and the companies within it.
One example of DCWP’s commitment to protecting delivery workers’ rights is its support for Local Law 34-2026, which would remove a platform’s ability to deal out “arbitrary deactivations in NYC” to their workers, according to DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine.
“I speak with delivery workers all the time, and they consistently describe the pressure to complete more orders in less time, or risk deactivation [on their platform],” said Levine at the hearing. “No worker should have to choose between their safety and their livelihood.”
Another set among the 23 bills focused on prohibiting the sale, rental, and eventual use of Class III e-bikes, which are only currently legal in NYC.
Most Class III e-bikes can reach speeds of up to 60 mph or more, four times the legal limit, according to a press release by Transportation Alternatives (TA), a non-profit organization that focuses on promoting alternative transportation options, such as bikes rather than cars. TA voiced its support for the legislation reforms at the hearing in the press release.
“It’s critical that the City Council move forward with targeted legislation that will get these illegal high-speed devices off our streets, phase out the fastest e-bikes, and finally regulate the delivery app industry,” said TA Executive Director Ben Furnas. “We know how to increase safety — by protecting riders of safe, low-speed e-bikes while ensuring that the fastest, most dangerous devices are phased out of New York City.”
TA feels confident that if these bills pass, the streets will be all the better for it.
“With these pieces of legislation, we can bring safety and peace back to our city’s bike lanes.”