Opposition Growing Against NYPD’s Criminalization Push for Bike-Traffic Infractions

Less than a month into the NYPD’s program to issue criminal summonses to bicyclists who violate traffic laws with infractions such as running a red light, a groundswell of opposition appears to be building.

May 19 was actually the first day that bikers who were issued criminal summonses started appearing in court to enter a plea. Streetsblog appeared in the courtroom and said that Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Michelle Weber lectured every one of the cyclists who appeared before her, but ended up tossing most of the tickets because cops failed to fill them out properly.

City Council Member Gale Brewer is the latest to come out against the NYPD tactic, which went into effect in April.

“The NYPD is now issuing criminal court summonses, instead of traffic tickets, to cyclists who go through red lights and for other minor infractions,” Brewer said. “I don’t support that new policy; I want people to follow the rules of the road, but a civil summons is a more appropriate response—and thrusting people into the criminal justice system unnecessarily is bad public policy.

“It’s also been reported that officers are issuing criminal summonses for legal activity, namely when bikes go through intersections with the pedestrian ‘walk’ sign, which was legalized by the City Council in 2019,” she said.

One aggrieved biker, Oliver Casey Esparza has filed a class action lawsuit against the city because he said he was issued a red-light violation for going through an intersection after the pedestrian light had turned white.

The City Council had changed the law, making this legal as a safety rule back in 2019, but the suit filed by Casey Esparza said he was ticketed by a cop who did not know the law had changed.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch opined in an op-ed entitled “Reckless e-bikers are a menace. Here’s how the NYPD is cracking down” in the New York Post:

“Over the past few years, e-bikes have become commonplace in communities across our city,” Tisch wrote. “These motorized vehicles are convenient, but they are also fast, heavy, and can be extremely dangerous. What’s more, the rapid proliferation of e-bikes has not been met with any meaningful governance of their safe use—until now.”

She noted that when drivers of motorized vehicles don’t respond to a traffic summons, their licenses can be suspended. Since e-bikers do not currently have a license to suspend, that legal option was closed off.

“Now, we’re closing that loophole by issuing c-summonses—the only real option available under the law to hold reckless e-bike operators accountable,” wrote Tisch, although she said she was open to change.

“As always, we are open to working with lawmakers on effective alternatives. In the meantime, and under current law, public safety will remain our top priority.”

Posters on the pro-bike subreddit r/NYCbike have worried that criminalizing bikers could be designed to ensnare migrants in the legal system since may of the deliveristas delivering food and packages to New Yorkers are migrants.

And some of the pro-bikers are calling for mass bike protests to block streets, similar to protests they mounted years earlier.

The NYC Electric Vehicle Safety Alliance has long called for all e-bikes to to be registered and to have license plates so that when someone is injured there is a record. The group journeyed to Albany in March to urge lawmakers to pass Priscilla’s Law, named for Priscilla Loke, who was killed in Chinatown after being struck by an e-biker who knocked her to the ground. She went into a coma and died several days later.

But even the group that is calling for more accountability, is not looking to criminalize biker behavior. A spokesperson said that all e-bikes should have licenses “because people would drive differently.” But the spokesperson said that on the criminality issue, “it is certainly not something that we ever asked for.”