Teen Helmet Mandate for E-Citi Bikes? Albany Lawmakers are Up to No Good Again

ALBANY — Key state lawmakers want to require some Citi Bike users to wear helmets — a mandate that studies have shown can dramatically reduce ridership of the city’s bike share system in a time of rising concern about congestion and climate change.

Assembly bill 590, sponsored by Assembly Member Amy Paulin (D-Westchester) would require that 16- and 17-year-old pedal assist e-bikes (Class 1) or lower-speed throttle-controlled e-bikes (Class 2) users wear helmets.

Under city rules, children over age 13 do not need helmets. And Citi Bike rules allow e-bikes to be rented by anyone over 16.

Not only do helmet laws lead to a decline in bike-share use, but other experts say they invite cops to target youths, particularly those of color. In 2022, for example, Seattle’s Board of Health dropped its helmet law because of “discriminatory enforcement of the rule against homeless people and people of color,” the Times reported.

At a brief hearing on Tuesday to advance the legislation to the floor, Transportation Committee Chair William Magnarelli (D-Syracuse) denied that the law would have any biased effect.

“My only concern is the safety of the people riding the bike,” said the 14-term lawmaker. “That’s it. That’s my concern. It’s been shown, to our satisfaction at least, that wearing the helmet saves lives, saves injuries.”

Studies, like a recent JAMA Surgery analysis, do find that individual cyclists do benefit from wearing a helmet. For instance, e-bike riders with head trauma seeking hospital care went up 49-fold from 2017 to 2022.

But helmet laws have been shown to reduce ridership, especially in bike share systems. But Magnarelli declined to discuss it.

“I’m not commenting on that,” he said. “I’m telling you what my concern is. My concern is the safety of the public, the people that we represent. That’s what this committee does.”

He also said he needed a cup of coffee. It was a busy day in Albany.

Amy’s Albany addendum

In other news from the hearing, lawmakers again demanded — as they did in 2023) — that Gov. Hochul authorize a study on extending the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway greenway, which has been a goal of Queens cyclists since 2014.

The parkway runs parallel to Union Turnpike between Cunningham Park and Winchester Boulevard, into Nassau County. Extending it would “give people a way to walk and bike east and west,” said Joby Jacob, a LaGuardia College professor who has long championed the parkway’s extension. “The Empire State Trail runs from the tip of Manhattan to Canada but it doesn’t serve people in Long Island, and Queens and Brooklyn are in Long Island.”

The bill to require a study, sponsored by Assembly Member David Weprin of Queens (with Zohran Mamdani of Queens and Robert Carroll of Brooklyn), previously passed both houses unanimously, but Gov. Hochul vetoed it, saying that she could not approve a study that was unfunded. In 2019, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo had also vetoed it on the same grounds.

Weprin told me at a Queens lawmaker gathering on Tuesday night that New York City has capital money for the trail, and the idea for the study was to figure out how to use it.

“I’m hoping we can work it out,” he said.

Also on Tuesday, the final version of the governor’s $254-billion budget were being released as they were printed. In the transportation section, we noticed that there is no longer a proposal by Gov. Hochul to reclassify heavy electric cargo bikes (like the Amazon four-wheelers we’ve seen in the bike lanes recently) as mopeds, meaning they would need license plates.

Also, prior talk that the budget would include allowing New York City to lower speed limits in bicycle lanes turned out to be just that — talk.

We’ll try to find out where these and other promises went. Stay tuned.