Reckless E-Bike Riders Turn Central Park into a Battleground
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So much for a walk in the park.Central Park goers want lawless e-bikes to slow down but the reckless riders are defiantly flouting laws and turning the greenspace into a danger zone.Now some fed-up locals say it’s time for an outright ban.A group attempts to enforce a stop sign on a Central Park bike path by the West 72nd Street entrance. Stephen YangE-bikes and e-scooters were involved in 33 crashes in the park through Oct. 18 and Central Park while precinct cops wrote 144 e-bike tickets through Oct. 25, up from 39 a year earlier, according to NYPD data,After the crashes and rule-breaking, safety advocates are pushing to ban e-bikes from Central Park, as Parks Department workers struggled to get riders to obey “no riding” signs in areas of the park where riders are asked to get off their bikes.When a Citi Bike rider was told to stop by a park worker riding in the “no riding” zone Wednesday, he cheekily called back, “Have a nice day.”Minutes later, an e-scooter rider sailed past a worker asking him to slow down. “He don’t give a f–k,” a bystander observed.“It seems like it’s mostly the delivery guys on their electronic bikes that are speeding because they’re always in a hurry to deliver something,” said Lee Zehngebot, 75, a snowbird who uses the park whenever he’s back in New York.Even parks workers calling out for riders to follow the rules didn’t stop out-of-control cyclists. Robert Miller for NY PostLee sitting with his wife Wendy who uses a wheelchair said they see delivery workers on e-bikes breaking the rules. Georgett Roberts for New York PostThe NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance rallied in the park Tuesday to call for an e-bike ban in city parks, joined by crash victims including Dave Katz, 71, who was hit head-on two years ago by an e-biker he said was looking at his phone and wearing earbuds.“I had a concussion, two major gashes, one that they couldn’t stitch up. My nose was broken, I had broken teeth and six ribs broken,” Katz said.The crash still weighs on Katz.“It’s really impacted me emotionally, I have to say, to this day, there is some depression that you never shed so easily, and I’m the half full type of guy,” Katz said.Dave Katz suffered a concussion, broken teeth, a broken nose, six broken ribs and lasting psychological damage after he was moved down by an e-bike. Dave KatzCommunity Board 8, which covers the Upper East Side, voted Oct. 21 to ask the city to ban every e-bike from Central Park except pedal-assist models, plus e-scooters and mopeds.Supporters point to crashes like the one that left Jean Kotler, 43, with a traumatic brain injury after an e-bike rider hit her from behind as she jogged on West Drive near West 64th Street on July 7, forcing doctors to remove part of her skull. The rider tried to leave, but pedestrians surrounded him and forced him to stay until first responders arrived, a witness told The Post. The NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance rallied in the park Tuesday to call for an e-bike ban in city parks. Stephen YangDespite the lawlessness, Mayor Zohran Mamdani ended criminal summonses for e-bike traffic violations in March, leaving cops to write civil tickets. Meanwhile, City Council Speaker Julie Menin dropped e-bike registration from her 17-bill safety package in August and punted the issue to Albany, which has in past years shown no appetite to register e-bikes in New York City. Cars have been banned from Central Park’s drives since 2018, but a city pilot launched in 2023 has let e-bikes and e-scooters use them, along with other park drives and greenways. Safety advocates say it’s not working. “They run all the lights,” said Janet Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the e-vehicles safety alliance. “Our park is not for transportation, it is for relaxation.”A park spokesperson told The Post it’s “critical that our public realm can safely accommodate the many diverse ways that New Yorkers get around.”“Reckless behavior is never permitted, and our Parks Enforcement Patrol have been enforcing these rules since the pilot began in 2023,” the spokesperson said. Still, riders breaking the rules said it was for their livelihood.After a park worker told an e-bike rider with a delivery bag on his back to stop, he kept going and shouted back, “I got to go to work, bro!”
