Elijah Orlandi knows what many New Yorkers think about e-bike delivery drivers: they drive too fast. They weave in and out of traffic and cycle paths, sometimes going completely the wrong way. They appear on sidewalks, standing still in groups and blocking the paths of pedestrians. They risk colliding with people, pets and cars as they rush to reach their destination.
“There are scenarios where people have a right to be angry,” said Orlandi, who lives in the Bronx and has been making e-bike deliveries for Grubhub since October — in addition to his 9-to-5 job. He's seen e-bike riders “weaving between cars and things like that.”
But Orlandi also hopes for compassion. “People need to understand that we are working,” he said. Delivery apps, he noted, track how quickly workers deliver their items — and notify them if it's taking too long.
“Sometimes you go somewhere and Grubhub sends you another order, and no matter what you do, you're going to be late,” he said. “So that's why you see a lot of people rushing.”
Of all the new types of vehicles and obstacles on New York City's busy streets and sidewalks, electric bicycles, which have been on the rise during the coronavirus pandemic, are drawing perhaps the sharpest opinions.
Delivery drivers were considered 'essential workers' during lockdown, and the speed and convenience of e-bikes made them attractive to food delivery drivers in the rain. The lockdown was eventually lifted, but the popularity of home delivery – and electric bicycles – persisted.
Commuters have also turned to e-bikes. They have already been there seven million rides on electric Citi Bikes this year.
But the explosion of e-bikes has also soured the way some New Yorkers view the streets.
“There's been a huge shift in the last three years,” says Susan Simon, who moved to New York in the late 1970s. “The quality of life has decreased.”
“The streets are very dangerous,” Simon continued. “What used to be a beautiful walking city for tourists and pedestrians has become something of a nightmare.”
Simon used to cycle himself, for fun or to go to the supermarket. But e-bikes are different, she said: faster and heavier and therefore riskier. She noticed that last year a woman was murdered after someone on an electric Citi Bike hit her.
There are some attempts to tame the chaos. Janet Schroeder and Pamela Manasse, who were hit by an electric vehicle in 2022 and a serious brain injuryfounded the NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliancewhich promotes various regulations for e-bikes.
The alliance supports a bill banning e-bikes and other e-vehicles from parks and greenways. It would also like the government to require e-bikes to be registered and riders to be licensed.
Schroeder said her organization includes 74 people who have been injured by e-bikes. In almost every case, she said, the rider immediately fled.
“It is a free campaign without any consequences for the people on these bicycles and mopeds,” said Schroeder.
Meera Joshi, New York's Deputy Mayor for Operations, acknowledges the difficulty of striking the right balance on the city's streets.
“We want to accommodate the convenience of technology and modern living,” she said, “but there is no doubt that we need to reduce the Frogger feeling on our streets.”
Joshi described the city's bike lanes as offices — busy offices — for more than 70,000 delivery workers. She wants the city to collect data from delivery companies to help make infrastructure improvements, such as widening those lanes. New York, she said, needs “a deeper understanding of who benefits from our roads so we can rewire the incentives to slow down.”
E-bike riders themselves are particularly vulnerable to danger. Zoey Laskaris and Mustafa Hussein, researchers at CUNY, recently published a study showing that food delivery workers in New York City are at high risk for injury and assault.
The situation is made worse by the fact that delivery app companies generally do not provide safety training, equipment, maintenance or worker compensation, the researchers said.
Laskaris suggested that New Yorkers also think about their own behavior. “We've all created this scenario,” she said, “where there's 'on demand, I want things delivered.'” The Upper West Side, where Manasseh was injured, is one of the neighborhoods where people like to leave food deliver. By some counts, it's about 14,000 orders per day.
Joe Riggs, an e-bike rider who lives in Ridgewood, Queens, is more concerned about reckless drivers than e-bike riders: “You can't count on vehicles obeying red lights,” he said. “It's quite terrifying.”
Riggs has 20 years of experience in urban driving and is “multi-modal,” as he calls it. He has a minivan, but he usually commutes by e-bike or electric unicycle, and drops his children off at school with an electric cargo bike.
He understands that e-bikes have a terrible reputation. “There are certainly a lot of irresponsible e-bike riders,” he said. But, he added, “I can get back and forth faster, have less trouble parking and have a lot more fun on the bike.”
For family outings he prefers the electric cargo bike to the minivan. “They are really viable car substitutes for most families who live in a city and don't need to travel outside of it,” he said. As for his children? “They love it.”
Quote of the week
What would your version of a utopian New York City look like?
A place where I can go for a bike ride with my mother. Is that too much to ask? — Henry Grabar, author of “Paved paradise.”
Postbag!
From the streetwars@nytimes inbox:
Although I regularly drive into NYC and struggle to find parking, the idea of increasing the amount of greenery on the streets appeals to me.
I was particularly drawn to the idea of converting curbside spaces into micro-parks. Almost every block has at least one fire hydrant. If I remember correctly, parking is required 5 meters on either side of the fire hydrant. Why don't we take that 30-foot span, rip out the asphalt and install permeable green space. There could be room for a tree at either end and still leave enough room for the fire department to access the hydrant.
— Daniel Friedmann, Poughkeepsie, NY