This seems reasonable to me for New York City. In most places I wouldn't want to go more than 20mph for my own safety. In pedestrian crowded NYC I'd be doing half that at most.
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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Limiting e-bike speeds is a great idea in NYC given how frequently they are used on sidewalks and pedestrian walkways on bridges.
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(11 replies)
16mph is the limitation in germany. If your bike is faster, you have to register it an pay tax, and cant use dedicated bicycle infratructure anymore.
16mph is exactly the speed where I'm fast enough but dont feel like I would die in a crash.
Everything above would require protective clothing like on motorcycles Imo, and that kind of defeats the purpose for ebikes for me. I want to ride my bike but don't want to have to fight against wind and going up the hill.
If an ebike is as fast as a motorcycle, it should get treated as one.
Yeah this proposal is reasonable. I wouldnt want to share my bikepath with old people driving more than 25kmh. They just dont have the reaction time to safely drive at speeds like that and even that is actually waaay to fast for the oldest. If you wanna go faster, use your muscles and/or drive on the road.
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(20 replies)
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(7 replies)
This feels like it's purposefully designed to kneecap the adoption of e-bikes by rendering all class 1 and 2 e-bikes illegal and making it harder/more expensive to buy new ones because they have to have bespoke detuning for the NYC market.
IMO, it should be 20mph, but it's a software limit. It's nothing to "tune" it.
If you want to go faster, get a motorcycle license. The higher end ebikes are getting ridiculous. Their frames, tires, and brakes are not designed for the power and speed they can put down.
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(8 replies)
This is a widely supported issue where I am, mostly because bike lanes are for self propelled vehicles and ebikes are sharing the roads with far heavier and faster vehicles that require licensing and insurance.
They fall between two stools though I am for licensing and insurance of them.
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(8 replies)
Why not just add speed limits to areas where higher speeds are an issue? That's been the approach to cars -- no car is limited to 140 kmh despite speeds above that are illegal pretty much everywhere...
Regular bikes can easily go above 15 mph as well, so why should this only affect e-bikes?
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(4 replies)
= 24 kilometers/hr for those also wondering
That sounds pretty fair to me. Very few regular bikers go faster than 20-25. Especially with more weight, like delivery or cargo bikes, and also especially with the e-motor support there is a lot of weight and power behind those bikes.
And bike lines are usually built for "regular" use, not high speed. All the curves, break distances etc. get planned with around that speed and not a whole lot more.
The original purpose of supporting disabled people who can't use a regular bike is still served and people don't have to be afraid of maniacs going 50mph in places where "common sense" would already advise them not to. If you're using a cargo bike, that also still works and you get not so gently instructed to watch the speed with your cargo.
Maybe they could do something where to use a bike lane, it has to be speed capped. Idk.
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(9 replies)
This seems like a "why not both" situation. Limit e-bike speeds to those that are typical in most parts of the world and reduce city speed limits for cars to 20mph, and enforce it aggressively.
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(3 replies)
there's going to be no Premium Rush 2...
Regulation is good.