The City Council effectively banned electric bikes from New York City in 2013 (although they've technically been banned for much, much longer), but that hasn't stopped restaurant delivery workers from constantly zipping around the city in their rush to deliver food. Now a recent crackdown on the motorized bikes has brought the full weight of the law down on restaurant workers, who can now count on less tips and work as they struggle to deal with human-powered transportation.
"We are not a criminal," 52-year-old Jason Shi told WNYC. "We just do delivery work on the street."
A labor rights group, The Chinese Staff and Worker's Association, is working to try to repeal the law, and is gathering signatures from workers who say they've been financially damaged by the law.
Since the ban went into effect in October, delivery workers have still used the motorized bikes in droves, racing through the streets to try to make deliveries as quickly as possible so they can head back to their restaurant to pick up another order. A protest last December failed to make a difference in the City Council, and the prospects of a reversal have dimmed further under Mayor de Blasio's Vision Zero traffic safety initiative.
