Michael Sutherland of Open Plans testifies on e-micromobility policy

Good afternoon.

Thank you to the chairs for holding this hearing.

My name is Michael Sutherland, and I'm the Senior Policy and Legislative Analyst at Open Plans, an advocacy organization fighting for a more livable city.

At Open Plans, we believe that our streets should work for all users, ensuring New Yorkers have access to safe, legal e-micromobility is a vital part of that goal.

E-micromobility provides an alternative to car trips, which is especially important in the outer boroughs, like in southern Brooklyn, where I was born and raised.

At Open Plans, we believe three pillars make up effective e-micromobility policy.

Point of sale regulation, enforcement, and infrastructure.

We support Intros 95, 244, and 988 to address dangerous devices at the point of sale.

We have serious concerns about pre-considered introduction 2361, which would ban the sale and use of Class 3 e-bikes.

We're supportive of a ban on the sale of Class 3 e-bikes, but such a ban on use concerns us.

Warnings distributed through this bill create an environment for pretextual stops, resulting in a disproportionate impact on undocumented.

to New Yorkers.

We're supportive of the concept of Intro 986, though we have thoughts about the mechanisms of the enforcement, which we detail further in our written testimony, which we'll submit.

We support Intro 1066, which would add traffic calming measures to bike lanes.

However, we believe that infrastructure is otherwise sorely missing from the conversation and this hearing.

We encourage the council to pursue other ways we can make the use of e-bikes more safe and convenient, like wider two-way protected bike lanes, and look into lanes dedicated to e-micromobility on our busiest e-micromobility corridors, like Councilmember Krishnan was mentioning earlier.

We support the concept of Intro 985.

A training program is essential in getting certain devices off the streets without limiting New Yorkers'ability to get around.

And lastly, we strongly discourage the council from hyper-focusing on delivery workers as the primary issue with e-micromobility.

This does a disservice to the delivery workers who provide an essential service to our city and to the task at hand, making our streets safer for all users.

To this end, we oppose Resolution 43.

Our positions on these bills and others in this hearing are expanded further in our written testimony.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next.