Ben Furnas of Transportation Alternatives testifies

Good afternoon.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for calling today's hearing.

My name is Ben Furness, and I'm the Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives.

We're here today because a 17-year-old boy is not.

A few weeks ago, just a block from where we're sitting, a boy was killed riding an illegal high-speed device.

A terrible crash on the Queensborough Bridge path earlier this year left two New Yorkers dead.

So far this year, 17 New Yorkers, some as young as 15 years old, have been killed while riding e-bikes or illegal high-speed devices sold as e-bikes.

Almost everyone was killed by a car or a truck driver.

Like you,

I hear a lot of complaints about devices that are just too fast for our bike lanes.

As a person who rides a bike and a parent of a six-year-old bike rider, I'm very proud of her, I feel it too.

To be clear, pedal assist and low-speed e-bikes are miraculous.

They're important, helpful, safe mobility devices that enable countless New Yorkers

to move around the city.

But high-speed illegal devices are different.

These are illegal to ride in New York City, but they're marketed and sold as legal to young people and unsuspecting New Yorkers.

Many can travel at speeds exceeding 25 miles per hour or as high as 50 or 60 miles per hour or more.

This is too fast for dense urban environments like New York City, where 20 is plenty on our streets and in our bike lanes.

We need to get high-speed devices off our streets, help people transition to safe devices, and regulate the delivery app companies that have transformed the conditions on our streets.

I'd like to highlight a few bills in particular.

Councilmember Shulman's Intro 950 and Committee Chair Abreu's Intro 1069 empowers the city to revoke licenses of companies that pressure delivery workers to go too fast, and analyze delivery app provided trip data to establish rules around mandated delivery times.

Councilmember Hudson's Intro 244 will get high-speed devices off our streets by banning the sale of the fastest currently legal e-bikes capable of exceeding 20 miles per hour.

Chair Abreu's 985 will help New Yorkers transition away from unsafe devices onto safe, slow ones by creating a trade-in program.

We want thoughtful transition to 20-mile-per-hour streets and bike lanes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

We're honored to be part of this work.

Appreciate it.

Johnny?