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Can New York City police tell how fast an e-bike goes just by looking at it? At the City Council's Sept. 30 e-bike hearing, NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters Michael Gerber said the answer is no, according to Streetsblog. Beyond that, Gerber also confessed that the NYPD never really follows up to determine whether bikes they seized (hundreds of e-bikes and thousands of mopeds just in the last year) were actually street legal. Yikes.
That confessional sits awkwardly beside two bills from Council Member Crystal Hudson, both of which single out one particular type of e-bike by top speed alone. Int 244 would end sales and rentals of Class 3 e-bikes in the city. Int 1110, formally introduced October 8th, would end riding them. Class 3 is legal in New York City and nowhere else in the state, so the fight is over a bike class that New York law allows in exactly one place. By the Council's own account, there is no data on how many e-bikes are on the road.
As of today (10/12), nothing has passed. Both bills are in committee after a hearing that ran past ten hours and covered 23 items, a grab bag that stretched from delivery-app licensing to street-corner signs reminding pedestrians to look up. This article sticks to the Class 3 part of the pile: what the bills do, who is for or against, and what the numbers can and can't tell us.
Wait...Which Class 3?
In most states, Class 3 means a pedal-assist bike whose motor only helps while you pedal and cuts out at 28 mph. PeopleForBikes, the U.S. bike industry's trade association, counted 43 states following that model in late 2024.
New York was a state that branched out and wrote its own. State law defines a Class 3 as a bike whose motor can drive it with no pedaling at all and stops assisting at 25 mph, and it allows the class "solely within a city having a population of one million or more" — a legislative way of saying they can only be ridden in the five boroughs of New York City. Classes 1 and 2 are legal statewide unless local law prohibits them, according to the Council's committee report.
In short, the city's Class 3 is slower than the national version (25 mph versus 28) and more permissive (it allows a throttle). PeopleForBikes called New York's version a "legal aberration" in December 2024 and urged the state to end the category.
There's a second wrinkle. Since Oct. 24, 2025, e-bikes in the city have been capped at 15 mph, and the committee report says the cap applies to Class 3 bikes even though their motors would assist up to 25. On a city street, a Class 3 rider and a Class 2 rider face the same legal speed limit, and Gerber told the hearing that when a bike is legal, its class usually doesn't matter to officers. The proposed bans are after what a Class 3 can do, not what its rider is allowed to do.
How did the city end up with its own Class 3? Albany legalized certain e-bikes and e-scooters in the 2020 state budget, let municipalities decide whether to allow them, and gave them power to set time, place and manner rules. The Council opted in that year with Local Laws 72 and 73, the committee report says. Streetsblog reported that Class 3 bikes were legalized in the city because of their popularity with delivery workers, many of whom were riding the Arrow-10. For more on how loosely the national class system holds together, see our piece on the fraying class system.
How We Got Here
- September 2025 to January 2026: Hudson introduces a bill to end Class 3 sales, Int 1380, and tells Streetsblog she wanted a response that "wouldn't actually criminalize the bike riders". It lapses with the legislative session, and she reintroduces it as Int 244 on Jan. 29.
- May to August 2026: A run of crashes raises the stakes. In May, an illegal e-scooter capable of more than 50 mph hits a cyclist on the Queensboro Bridge, killing both riders. In July, a runner in Central Park is critically injured by an e-bike going the wrong way. Fox 5 reported on Aug. 5 that a 17-year-old on an illegal, high-speed e-bike had been killed near City Hall the week before.
- Aug. 4 and 5: Speaker Julie Menin announces a Council review of e-bike and e-scooter rules and a package of more than a dozen bills. The next day, Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration issues cease-and-desist orders to 42 online retailers accused of selling illegal high-speed e-bikes and scooters (more in our August roundup).
- Sept. 30: The joint hearing of three committees, with the package now at 23 items.
- Oct. 8: Hudson's second bill, Int 1110, is introduced.
What The Bills Would Do
Two Hudson bills do the Class 3 work, in sequence. Both share a quirk: the first violation is free.
The sales ban (Int 244). The bill would bar anyone in the city from distributing, selling, leasing or renting a Class 3 e-bike. The penalty is $0 for a first violation, then up to $2,000 for each later one issued on a different day within two years, with each stock-keeping unit counted as its own violation. It would take effect 180 days after becoming law. Because it targets sales, people who already own a Class 3 could keep riding it. The Council's Finance Division projects no fine revenue and no new city spending, assuming full compliance and that city agencies can enforce the ban with existing resources. Twenty-seven Council members (Hudson with 26 co-sponsors) are on the bill.
The riding ban (Int 1110). This is the one that would change life for owners. It would bar operating a Class 3 on city streets, in parks, and in other public places, starting 24 months after enactment. Riders caught before April 1, 2029 would get a warning and information, not a violation. After that, the first violation is $0, the second up to $50 and each later one up to $100 (all falling within two years of the first), and a bike ridden in a way that endangers people or property could be impounded on a third or later violation. The bill also directs the city to develop written materials for riders that include how to convert a Class 3 into a Class 2. Hudson and three colleagues, including Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Shaun Abreu, are on it, and it was heard as a draft at the Sept. 30 hearing.
The off-ramp (Int 985). Abreu's trade-in bill would have DOT let owners of Class 3 e-bikes — and of similar bikes that don't qualify as Class 1 or 2 — swap them for a Class 1 or 2 e-bike or a retailer voucher. It calls for at least one trade-in event per community district each year and a goal of 10,000 trade-ins (one DOT wouldn't have to meet if demand or retailer participation fell short), and it bars DOT from limiting eligibility by occupation or income. Obviously, this makes the bill contingent on funding. DOT told the committees it backs the intent but finds a program like this very resource intensive. Its 2025 pilot, on a $2 million budget, gave 402 delivery workers a certified e-bike and two certified batteries each in exchange for uncertified e-bikes and batteries or illegal mopeds.
Around those bills sit additional legislation on police dynamometer testing, advertising rules and delivery-app licensing, insurance and trip data, all summarized in the committee report.
The Case For
Supporters' central argument is speed. DOT, which backs the sales ban, told the committees that Class 3 bikes can create additional safety challenges compared with lighter, slower e-bikes, and noted that elsewhere in the state any vehicle capable of more than 20 mph needs a license and registration. The department says it will pursue state legislation for a regulatory framework that moves New Yorkers and delivery workers away from devices capable of more than 20 mph. Transportation Alternatives wants to phase out devices capable of 25 or 28 mph, starting with a point-of-sale ban. As Ben Furnas of the group put it, "20 is plenty on our streets."
The second argument is the trend. The committee report, citing NYPD data through Sept. 20, counts 738 injuries and 13 deaths among e-bike riders this year, up from 601 and 10 at the same point in 2025. Menin has framed the package as acting before the next tragedy rather than after it.
The third is that a sales ban is the gentle option. It leaves current owners alone, which fits Hudson's goal of not criminalizing riders. Matthew Daus, transportation technology chair at CUNY's University Transportation Research Center, argued in an August amNY op-ed that the Council's proposals, Hudson's sales ban among them, will reduce the number of faster, legal e-bikes, and that "these ideas will work." He added that more enforcement should come before any blanket registration mandate.
The Case Against & The Fringe Case
Workers' groups have been warmer to the sales ban than to the riding ban. Last year, Ligia Guallpa, executive director of the Workers Justice Project, called the sales ban an important step forward in a safety approach that pairs such measures with reforms to the delivery-app industry. Los Deliveristas Unidos, a project housed under the Workers Justice Project, opposes the riding ban. Delivery workers commonly use Class 3 bikes, so they are the people most exposed.
Inside the administration, the doubts are about the riding ban, too. DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine told the committees the agency has significant concerns that it would fall most heavily on delivery workers, many of them immigrants with limited English proficiency. They could lose their livelihoods and face more interactions with law enforcement, and amNY reported that some may unwittingly keep riding because of a language barrier. DOT said it needs more time to analyze the riding ban before taking a position.
Alongside its vocal complaints, Workers Justice Project suggested an alternative. Deputy director April Herms told the hearing the goal should be "reducing e-bike speeds", and she proposed paying shops to modify existing motors so they top out at 20 mph. The group estimates, based on a previous city program, that replacing 20,000 bikes could cost about $100 million. Int 1110 itself nods in a similar direction, by directing the city to develop materials on converting a Class 3 into a Class 2. Both ideas end at a 20 mph bike, but questions remain on whether to ban first and who would pay.
Enforcement is the practical worry. NYPD says officers can't tell an e-bike's top speed on sight, and it seized 1,206 e-bikes this year without following up on whether they were street-legal. Menin herself has said existing laws aren't being enforced adequately. The dynamometer bill, meant to solve the identification problem, drew opposition from NYPD, which cited procurement, cost and operational functionality. The Workers Justice Project told Gothamist it would intensify unfair confiscations and racial profiling.
Critics on the other flank say the package doesn't go far enough. The NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance — an advocacy group for regulating e-bikes and mopeds — wants registration and is also pushing for Albany to pass Priscilla's Law, which would require e-bikes to carry license plates. That bill isn't in the package, and Int 802, the City Council version associated with registration, wasn't among the items heard. Streetsblog reported in August that Mamdani does not support registration and licensing for e-bikes.
Renee Baruch, who was hospitalized in 2023 after being struck by an e-bike rider, told Gothamist the legislation would have some impact but called it "insufficient and misdirected". Streetsblog, which has been skeptical of the package, noted in August that none of the bills on Menin's list directly addressed reckless drivers of cars and trucks, and DOT's own testimony says nearly 90 percent of traffic deaths involve cars and trucks.
One voice has been more difficult to find. In the coverage we reviewed, no retailer or manufacturer takes a public position on the sales ban, even though they would be the ones asked to stop selling these bikes.
The Numbers Nobody Has
Both sides base their arguments on statistics, yet none are specifically about Class 3.
The Mayor's Office reported 45 e-bike rider deaths from 2017 through 2025, 54% of which involved illegal e-bikes capable of traveling faster than 25 mph. No legal class assists above 25 mph, so that tally can't include a legal Class 3. DOT's written testimony says more than half of riders who die in crashes are on illegal high-speed devices, in line with those tallies. But the figures DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn gave aloud covered this year so far: roughly two of 17 e-bike deaths involved illegal devices, with three unknown. The figures cover different periods, and none specify how many deaths involved a Class 3.
The denominator is missing, too. The committee report says there is "no data on the number of e-bikes in circulation", though it cites advocates' estimate of at least 65,000 delivery workers using them. DOT's chief of staff, Madeline Labadie, told the committees that without a license requirement there is no single source of truth on how many are on the streets or sold.
What data does exist points to a small share of pedestrian harm. The Comptroller's 2024 analysis, as summarized in the committee report, found that e-bikes, e-scooters and mopeds accounted for 8 of 449 pedestrian deaths from 2020 through 2023 — totaling 1.8% — while motor vehicles accounted for more than 95%. The committee report itself calls the danger substantially lower than the danger from cars, but rising.
One bill in the package would start to fill the gap. Int 1052 would have NYPD and DOT publish crash data broken out by type and class of device, though only where a class applies, and DOT's compilation would include only information that reaches the department. DOT supports the intent. Whether officers can reliably record a bike's class at a crash scene is another open question, given Gerber's earlier answer on speed.
Supporters can read the gaps as an argument for a bright line: if officers can't tell a 25 mph throttle bike from something faster by eye, a market with no fast legal bikes is easier to police. Critics can read them the other way: it's hard to justify banning a class nobody has counted or measured. Both readings fit what's publicly known, which isn't much.
Where It Goes From Here
If you ride a Class 3 in New York today, nothing has changed thus far, and under the bills as written you could keep cruising for at least two years after enactment. We found no scheduled vote on either bill, but we'll keep an eye out. Legistar shows Int 244 laid over in committee since the hearing and Int 1110 sitting in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee since Oct. 8. Patch reported that lawmakers could decide the proposals' fate early next year, though it didn't attribute that timeline. Co-sponsorship isn't a vote, either: 27 members, a majority of the 51-member Council, are on Int 244.
The administration has only partly weighed in. DOT supports the sales ban and wants more time on the riding ban. Mamdani said in August that his "first focus frankly is that which is already illegal" and that he would wait for specifics on the rest of the package.
Albany is the other venue. Class 3 exists in New York because of state law, and DOT says it will pursue state legislation to move riders away from devices capable of more than 20 mph. State law also lets cities decide whether to allow these devices and set rules for their use, which is how the city's 2020 legalization came about, per the committee report. The Council is now debating whether to take part of that decision back.
What To Watch
- Whether Int 244 or Int 1110 gets a committee vote, and if the legislative text changes in any way by then
- DOT's formal position on the riding ban, which it said it needs more time to study
- Funding for the trade-in bill, and what DOT's evaluation of its 2025 pilot concludes
- Whether Int 1052 passes, and what the first crash numbers broken out by class show
- Any state bill from DOT's promised push, and whether Albany takes it up in 2027
- Where Mayor Mamdani lands on the riding ban
Related Content
- California Signs E-Bike Laws as NYC Weighs a Class 3 Ban
- New Jersey's E-Bike Law is Emptying Bike Shops
- The Three Class System is Fraying at the Edges
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