Zohran Mamdani On E-Bike Safety: Regulate App Algorithms, Not Workers

Presumptive Mayor Zohran Mamdani is joining the war against e-bikes … on the side of the e-bikes.

The Queens legislator was asked the by the Downtown Democratic Coalition last week: how he would enforce laws against bike and e-vehicles. But instead of pandering, the Democratic mayoral nominee made his position clear: the way make the streets safe for both delivery riders and pedestrians is to ensure delivery apps can’t push riders to make unsafe decisions on the street.

“Much this conversation around e-bikes and e-vehicles focuses on individual actions and infractions,” Mamdani said. “And one of the things that I will do is focus on the systemic drivers of this chaotic streetscape, one of them being the app companies.”

Mamdani noted that DoorDash gave $1 million to a Super PAC affiliated with Andrew Cuomo during the Democratic primary earlier this year as a way to try to curry favor with the then-frontrunner.

“They want to influence labor and street safety regulations because their algorithm for all of their delivery workers is one that pushes those workers to make as many deliveries as possible in a finite period of time,” Mamdani said. “It is an algorithm that rewards the breaking of street safety regulations and one that hurts drivers, riders who actually follow the law, which would then take them more time. And so we have to ensure that there is regulation of these algorithms such that what is incentivized is following the law.”

The answer puts the likely next mayor firmly on the side of the workers who have been fighting with delivery companies for years over how to best ensure that deliveristas ride safely while at work. It also puts Mamdani decidedly on the side of the City Council, which has rumbled with delivery apps over a proposal to prevent unexplained lockouts and deactivations from apps, and a proposal to require the apps to provide delivery riders with safety equipment and make the riders take a safety course.

The Council recently overrode a mayoral veto of a law to expand a delivery worker minimum wage provision to grocery apps — a bill against which Instacart aggressively lobbied. And legislators are also considering a bill from Council Member Crystal Hudson, a potential future Speaker, that would prevent e-bikes sold in New York City from going faster than 20 miles per hour.

Mamdani also pointed to street design as a way to ensure that people feel safe on the streets, no matter what their mode of transportation. Using the Queensboro Bridge as an example, the Assembly member said that moment the city finally allowed pedestrians to start walking on the span’s South Outer Roadway was the moment everyone felt much calmer using the bridge.

“Often these design decisions pit New Yorkers against each other when in fact the design has necessitated that aggression. And now we have a separate roadway. And you can just feel the level of ease that has come into New Yorkers on both sides of that roadway,” Mamdani said about the new setup on the bridge.

“And I think that’s an example of what life could look like across so much of our city if we said this is where bikes go, this is where pedestrians go, and this is where cars go. Everyone will benefit from that because everyone will know where they’re expected to be,” he added.

Mamdani has declined to take the Dave Colon Challenge and answer questions about his transportation policy plans, but his comments at the candidate forum track with his previous commitments to be more of a champion for street safety and mass transit than Mayor Adams.