IN BRIEF
The New York City Council announced on 4 August a package of seventeen bills intended to regulate e-bikes and e-scooters, several of which target delivery platforms. Among the measures: a mandatory business licence for delivery apps, a ban on selling and renting e-bikes capable of reaching 25 mph on throttle, data sharing on delivery workers and, still to be introduced, an additional insurance requirement for delivery platforms. Council Speaker Julie Menin points to a 31.7% rise in collisions involving an e-bike in 2026 and more than 500 crashes recorded since January. Nothing has been adopted at this stage: a public hearing is set for 30 September 2026, and it will also cover the enforcement of laws already on the books.
New York sees around 400,000 bicycle deliveries a day, according to the City Council’s press release. The figure frames the stakes: the electric two-wheeler is also a mass working tool there, and the package targets delivery platforms first, without sparing the machines sold to the general public.
Seventeen e-bike bills in New York, and a hearing in September
The announcement was made on 4 August. amNewYork describes “a package of 17 proposals aimed at reducing collisions involving e-bikes, e-scooters and other micromobility devices”; CBS New York cites the same figure. The Council’s press release, for its part, does not use that number: it announces “more than a dozen” legislative proposals and details an initial list of bills already introduced, which it explicitly presents as non-exhaustive, with the others announced for introduction at a later date.
The effort is led by Council Speaker Julie Menin, together with Majority Leader Shaun Abreu, who chairs the transportation committee, as well as Harvey Epstein (consumer and worker protection) and Oswald Feliz (public safety). “Every New Yorker deserves to travel through our city freely and safely, no matter their mode of transport,” Julie Menin said. “But too many people have been seriously injured or killed in collisions involving illegal, high-speed e-bikes, e-motorcycles and e-scooters. We already have laws on the books, and yet they are not being sufficiently enforced — and we must also examine what additional legislative solutions are needed to protect New Yorkers.”
The timetable matters as much as the content: the Council has set a public hearing for 30 September 2026, and the bills still have to go through committee. That hearing will not deal only with the new bills: the press release also announces a review of how existing laws are being enforced. Electrek sums up the state of play bluntly: these measures “still face committee hearings and months of debate”.
Delivery platforms in the firing line
A good part of the package targets the companies giving the orders rather than the delivery workers themselves. One proposal would require delivery apps to obtain a business licence from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the city agency responsible for consumer and labour matters. Another bill, also already introduced, would require them to hand over data on their delivery workers: identification numbers, time and place of delivery.
On the hardware side, one proposal would ban the sale and rental of e-bikes capable of reaching 25 mph on throttle — that is 40 km/h, Electrek notes. Added to this are tougher penalties for hit-and-run offences and the creation of a working group tasked with studying street design. Finally, the Council announces, for the coming weeks, bills still to be introduced: an additional insurance requirement for delivery platforms and incentives to take back machines deemed dangerous.
The figures put forward by the Council
The press release highlights a 31.7% rise in collisions involving an e-bike in 2026 compared with the previous year, and more than 500 crashes recorded since January. It also recalls the Queensboro Bridge crash in May 2026, which killed two people. These are the figures elected officials set against the 400,000 daily deliveries.
One absence is worth flagging, and it will interest French readers following the debates on registration: according to Electrek, the proposal that would have imposed number plates and registration on all e-bikes and e-scooters is not part of the package presented on 4 August. The idea has not been dropped for all that: the package includes a resolution calling on the New York State Legislature to pass its own version of “Priscilla’s Law”, which would require licence plates on e-bikes, amNewYork and CBS New York report. The council member behind it, Gale Brewer, justifies handing the matter to the state on the grounds that the City’s transportation department does not have the capacity to register these machines — a task that in her view falls to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
