E-cycles are faster, heavier and more deadly: As death toll shows, it’s time to end themBy Nicole Gelinas
Published Sep. 24, 2023
Early this month, after more than 10 years of operation, New York’s Citi Bike bicycle-share program marked a grim milestone: the first-ever death of a pedestrian hit by a Citi Bike rider.
The cyclist wasn’t riding one of the traditional blue-pedal bikes when he allegedly hit and killed 69-year-old Priscilla Loke, but rather an electric Citi Bike.
Loke’s death is yet another reminder that battery-powered electric bikes — and their new cousins, gas-powered mopeds — are not bicycles but fast-moving motorized vehicles.
Those vehicles’ proliferation on New York’s dense streets, encouraged by supposed safe-streets advocates and city government, is reversing more than a decade’s progress in making New York’s streets more hospitable to pedestrians and traditional pedal cyclists.
Police are still investigating the details of the Sept. 5 Lower East Side crash that killed Loke, but two videos give us hints. Loke, after waiting near the curb, steps into the intersection to cross the street; the man on the electric Citi Bike plows into her. Just before the crash, it’s not clear who has the light.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/09/24/death-toll-shows-time-to-end-e-cycles/
