Title: The NYPD's Crackdown on Cyclists

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Brigid Bergin: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, sitting in for Brian this week. Now, we'll talk about the NYPD's crackdown on cyclists and why a growing number of riders are being pulled into the criminal court system. Over the past few months, the NYPD has dramatically ramped up enforcement against cyclists violating traffic rules, issuing nearly 6,000 criminal summonses between April and June. That's up from 561 in the first 3 months of the year, a tenfold increase.

The directive comes straight from Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who announced that cyclists caught running red lights, biking against traffic, or not wearing helmets would no longer get traffic tickets. Instead, they'd receive criminal summonses requiring a court appearance. The city says the crackdown targets safety violations in high-traffic corridors, many involving e-bikes and delivery workers, but everyday cyclists are getting caught up in the crackdown too, and that's prompted concerns about whether cyclists are being penalized more harshly than drivers, and about the potential risks for undocumented immigrants.

WNYC and Gothamist's Paige Oamek reported this story, and Stephen Nessen, making his third appearance on the show in two weeks, is our resident transportation expert. Paige crunched the numbers and mapped out where the enforcement is happening, and Stephen spoke with riders about the crackdown, some of whom say the policy feels more punitive than protective. Stephen, I think you might win for the most frequent guest on the show over the last week and a half.

Stephen: I have my punch card.

Brigid Bergin: [laughs] Paige, welcome.

Paige: Hey.

Brigid Bergin: If you're a cyclist or a delivery worker, or if you've been stopped under this new crackdown, we want to hear from you. Pedestrians and drivers, all welcome. Do you think the NYPD's enforcement push makes the streets safer, or is it unfair and overzealous? Give us a call, 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692. You can call or text at that number. Paige, let's start with your reporting. What exactly changed this spring in how the NYPD treats traffic violations by cyclists?

Paige: Prior to this spring, if you were a cyclist and you did something like ran a red light or biked the wrong way down a one-way street, you would get a civil summons, which basically meant you got a traffic violation. That meant that you could pay your violation online, meaning that you could pay that, you didn't have to take a day off of work, you got that ticket over and done with. You were still punished for breaking the law, but get it done, forget about it.

Brigid Bergin: Now?

Paige: Now, you go to criminal court. It's become a much more serious offense. Now, criminal summons already existed for cyclists before this crackdown, but as we said earlier in the program, they were happening a lot less, and they were happening only for certain violations, like biking on the sidewalk or for certain types of commercial infractions.

Brigid Bergin: Now we've made this shift, and people are going to take more time and deal with these criminal summonses. Stephen, you talked to riders caught up in some of this. What are the kinds of interactions they were describing, and how are they reacting to what seems like a pretty sudden shift?

Stephen: Cyclists were obviously very angry about it, not happy, frustrated. I'm sure the phones can light up with that. One of the interesting things I heard was that for the folks that actually did go to court to deal with this, they're contesting it, they're fighting it. Some of them were like, "I don't even know why they gave me a ticket. I stopped at the red light." [chuckles] They were pretty outraged that this was happening. Then they go to court, and the police officer who wrote the ticket either doesn't show up, which was common, or there's some kind of mistake on it: an intersection is wrong, the time is wrong. There's little mistakes in the actual ticket itself, and the judges throw it out.

Brigid Bergin: That's so interesting because, Paige, you found that in the spring, the NYPD issued more criminal summonses to cyclists than in the previous seven years combined. It sounds like there's some issues with the tickets, maybe some issues with the violations. Where did you find this crackdown happening most aggressively, and what kinds of violations are officers targeting?

Paige: Where we're seeing this happen the most are where the NYPD said they would be cracking down, so the dozen or so places they said they would be cracking down, which are these high-traffic areas like Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, 2nd Avenue in Manhattan, Fordham Road in the Bronx. Those are police precincts like the Midtown East Precinct, Midtown South Precinct, areas like Mott Haven in the Bronx, or Harlem. The violations that people are getting are for disobeying red lights, biking on the sidewalk, going the wrong way on a one-way street.

One thing that Stephen said that I want to pick up on is, oftentimes, as I was going through this data, police are not necessarily filling out these forms correctly, at least from what I'm seeing. I had a really hard time being able to just get this data combined, find what tickets were for bikers. I would love to see this data confirmed by the NYPD to know that my numbers are correct, and I would love to see what numbers they have internally about the numbers of bikes versus e-bikes.

Brigid Bergin: You put in a lot of work to try to understand what's been happening in this window of time. What is the rationale for the change to criminal court? These tickets have been handled in traffic court for drivers, so why is this a criminal issue when it involves a cyclist?

Paige: I think it's a matter of showing force. I think it's trying to show that the NYPD is taking this emotional issue somewhat an issue that is serious, that pedestrian safety is a serious issue in this city, but an issue that some citizens, and I'm sure that people on the line will have a lot of thoughts about, that they're taking this issue seriously. As other people on the line will, I'm sure, also say that it's people who drive are not necessarily going to face the same consequences.

Stephen: One of the things that Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said to the City Council when she announced that this is going forward is that she noted that when a driver ignores a traffic summons, they could have their license suspended, but because e-bikes, which is specifically what they really want to crack down on, I think, they don't require licenses, there's no similar way to penalize bad behavior. That's one of the reasons why they justified upgrading these tickets to criminal summonses as opposed to just a traffic summons, which also cars when they get one for running a red light, they can just pay it in the mail. They don't have to go to court. That's quite different.

Brigid Bergin: Stephen, we're getting a couple of people asking about the state's helmet law and the requirement for cyclists. From what we have been able to gather, it sounds like all cyclists under age 14 are required to wear a helmet in New York State. On 311, it says New York City law requires all commercial cyclists to wear securely fastened, properly fitted helmets that are in good condition. Employers are required to ensure that their commercial cyclists wear helmets. Is this one of the things that people are being pulled over for?

Paige: Yes. When I broke down the numbers, I got that 85 criminal summons were given for no helmet and 23 criminal summons were given for bicycle, no safety helmet. Unclear once again, going back to would love to see this data confirmed, exactly what those summons mean from the NYPD. As a biker myself, I don't think it's necessarily illegal for me, as a person who is over 14, to not wear a helmet while I'm biking around and as a non-commercial cyclist. Certainly, people got criminal summons for not wearing a helmet.

Brigid Bergin: I want to bring some callers into the conversation. As you might expect, a lot of our listeners have a lot of opinions on this. I want to start with Lynn in Astoria. Lynn, you're on WNYC.

Lynn: Hi. Thank you. I just wanted to say how disgusted I am by this crackdown on cyclists. I feel it's very inordinate and that the real focus needs to be on drivers of 2-ton machines. Sure, there are some bad cyclists out there. As a pedestrian, I've encountered some bad cyclists, people on scooters. They've been reckless. They've threatened me and my safety, and I've said something to them. My ire is not just against drivers and cars. I am not anti-car, but let's be real here.

If you look at the NYPD's own collision stats, the threats to all of us, the biggest threat, including to other drivers, are 2-ton machines. Drivers have become exponentially more emboldened over the years. Every single day now, I see multiple drivers running blatant red lights. Often, this is done in full view of NYPD, as well as illegal parking, idling, all of which creates deadly domino effects on our streets. That's where the primary focus needs to be first, not on cyclists.

Brigid Bergin: Lynn, thanks so much for that call. For another perspective, let's go to Susan in Park Slope. Susan, you're on WNYC.

Susan: Hi. I want to agree that the criminalization aspect and the attack on cyclists feels wrong to me, but I also want to push back a little. I don't want to see delivery drivers who are under terrible stress from their employers to essentially break the law because they have these horrible deadlines that they have to meet, because nobody will walk to a restaurant anymore to pick up their food. That's another story.

The behavior of cyclists, I've never once heard on any of these calls, transportation alternatives and the folks who ride bikes in the city, which I no longer do because I have hand arthritis and I can't, doing some self-reflection about stopping at stop signs, stopping at red lights, not driving straight at me when I'm in a car on a one-way street going the wrong way in the middle of the road. Cyclists driving outside of the designated bike lanes, which have been put there specifically for them, but no, they're in the middle of the roadway. There's cyclists riding at me at night on a sidewalk without a light on, coming straight down the sidewalk at 25 miles an hour.

I don't know what the person in Astoria is seeing because in Park Slope, it's dangerous now to be a pedestrian. Yes, cars are out of control, and I think this is cynical, what they're doing. I really do. I don't think cyclists should be attacked, but I do wish that cyclists-- Frankly, if you don't wear a helmet, for heaven's sake, when you fall off a bike, I'm a former cyclist, you go over the handlebars and you land on your head. I guess you make your choice, but it's silly.

Brigid Bergin: Susan, thank you so much for that other perspective. Stephen, Paige, what did you make of our dueling perspectives there?

Stephen: I guess I appreciate the calls. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you, Susan. These are certainly opinions that are shared amongst many people in the city, so you're certainly not alone. I would just add maybe some facts for us to look at and maybe think about. I have the latest fatality data from the Department of Transportation. So far this year, 61 pedestrians, 2 bikers, 6 e-bikers, 2 people on a scooter, 9 people on a moped, 8 motorcyclists, and 19 drivers have all been killed by vehicles this year. That's to date, 2025.

Only one person has been killed in a crash involving an e-bike, and only one person has been killed, one pedestrian, involving a stand-up e-scooter. To the, I think it was Susan's point, that cars are so much more dangerous than bikes, that is a fact we can look at. Do you feel safe? Are you worried about bikers maybe coming at you from the wrong direction? That is also a very real concern, and that's something the city is responding to with this so-called quality of life division that Mayor Adams has created to address these things and make people feel better.

I would just add anecdotally, also as someone who bikes a lot around the city, in the last few months, I feel like I've really noticed that, especially the e-bike delivery workers are much more thoughtful and conservative, I found. I know cars can say, "Why? Are you crazy?" They do stop at the red lights more, I found, than in the last year, for sure.

Brigid Bergin: A listener texts a question or a point that I think is interesting, because as we're talking about this crackdown on cyclists, this listener writes, "If they crack down on drivers in the same way, I'd be fine with it. I see reckless driving constantly and nearly get run over every day." Is cracking down on driving part of what the city's trying to do to keep streets safer, or is it primarily a focus on cyclists?

Paige: Not that I've heard of.

Stephen: They do crack down on vehicles in some ways. There've been this push you've heard recently about cracking down on ghost plates, vehicles that have fake plates, but as far as the day-to-day, I also literally every day see a car running a red light. Maybe it's not egregious, maybe it just turned red and they just slipped through, but it's such a common, comfortable thing for drivers to do, and it doesn't get the same sort of attention or a concerted crackdown from police. It's also trickier, I think, because you just need more police cruisers to do that kind of thing, whereas a couple of cops can stand on a corner and just stop cyclists much more easily and just keep issuing the tickets fast that way.

Brigid Bergin: Let's get a couple more callers in here, some with questions, some with suggestions. Let's go to Brigid in Jackson Heights. Brigid, you're on WNYC.

Brigid: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question about some specific legal questions for bikers in New York. I'm pretty sure that I read or heard somewhere that, which I think is called pedestrian lead interval, when the pedestrian signal illuminates before the green light illuminates, and that it's legal for bikers to go through that alongside pedestrians, and that it's safer for bikers to do that.

Then I think something else that I, and I don't know the name of this, but in some states, I think it's possible that you can treat a red light like a stop sign when you're biking, and if there's no traffic coming from either direction, you can then go through it, so basically turning a red light into a stop sign. I wondered how those apply to New York, and if you know the legality of that.

Brigid Bergin: Brigid, thank you so much for that. Before I get some answers for you, I want to bring in Carly, I think, from Morningside Heights, who's going to build on that. Carly, you're on WNYC.

Carly: Thank you for taking my call. I think it's important to have an education program for all cyclists, those who ride electric bikes, those that ride pedal bikes, and so on, to clarify what the rules are. I think it would be important to involve the police, the city council, transportation alternatives, and the public in coming to an agreement on who has right of way when. Particularly for pedestrians, it's very dangerous to try to cross certain streets.

Not only do bicycles not pay attention to any stop lights, but some cars, as someone has just said, also. I think there's a question of who has right of way, and there should be a priority for pedestrians over wheeled vehicles. Wheeled vehicles should, if they're motorized, behave like cars, and if they're not motorized, they may still need to stop at stop lights because otherwise pedestrians really don't know where it's safe to cross.

Brigid Bergin: Carly, thank you so much for that. Paige, Stephen, you probably heard why I put those callers together, because we have one caller who has some really specific questions. Sounds like a cyclist who doesn't know all the rules of the road, and a really great suggestion from Carly that maybe there should be a little bit more education for cyclists about what the rules of the road are. To you both, can you answer Brigid's question, and then is there a program that does this kind of education?

Paige: Carly, I think that's a great idea. Someone else who had that idea or talked to that this morning on Morning Edition was the folks at Los Deliveristas who were talking about how they want to develop that program for their members and how they think that's really important and how they would like to build that in with the mayor's program for delivery workers and how they're not seeing that right now. You're not alone in seeing that and wanting that.

Then to specifically address those questions around rules of the road, I know that, yes, if the walk signal does come on as a cyclist, it's my understanding that once that little walk guy comes on, [chuckles] you can begin to cross as a cyclist. One thing I also know is that cops don't always know that and may be writing tickets for cyclists despite that. Then passing to you, Stephen.

Stephen: I think also she was asking about what's called an Idaho stop, whereas if the light's red but there's no cars coming, if you can treat it like a stop sign instead. I know there's been efforts to pass that law in New York State, and I don't think it has passed, but I know there are folks who want that to pass, given all the stuff that's happening now. I don't know how likely that is.

Just to the education program, I could be wrong, but I believe during the de Blasio era, when he first did his e-bike crackdown, they did have some sort of education campaign. They tried to get workers to wear vests and identify themselves, and there was some education component to that. Obviously, things change quickly, and there's a whole new host of delivery workers now, and the rules have also changed. That's good.

Brigid Bergin: Another listener texted something, and I'm going to turn it into a question. The listener writes, "I want to see a crackdown on bridges. Full-size license plates motorcycles use bike lanes. A pair of cops on either side would stop this." When you looked at where the enforcement was happening, was some of these bridge crossings part of it?

Paige: Yes, definitely the Williamsburg Bridge, which was a huge, huge one. I do think that bridges are having a crackdown, but I agree that's definitely a very dangerous place. I agree that that feels very unsafe as a biker when you have those motorized vehicles there.

Brigid Bergin: In our last couple of minutes, one of the issues that this raises, and Paige, you were speaking to it because I know on Morning Edition they spoke to Los Deliveristas, is how this kind of crackdown could impact delivery workers and how those people might be treated differently if they were to enter into the court system. Advocates have raised fears that these criminal sentences could be fed into something like that. What do we know so far about how much that is happening?

Paige: When I spoke to Luis Cortes at Los Deliveristas for this piece, what I heard was that the worst does not seem to be happening. Two months ago, when I spoke to Luis, there were a lot of worries. There were a lot of worries about isolating outside of these state courthouses. These criminal summons go to the state courthouse, which is a little different than Federal Plaza, et cetera. These workers who do these delivery routes don't necessarily know that. Any encounter with the criminal justice system is one encounter too many for some. What Luis told me was that this crackdown is actually pushing some of these workers out of this industry and keeping some of them at home.

I also spoke to cyclists, some delivery workers, some recreational cyclists who said they're staying home and are afraid to be biking in general. I think people are scared. People don't know the difference between these courts. What we're seeing right now is that there isn't a clear thread between ICE enforcement and these deportations and this criminal summons. That's yet to be seen. I think it's definitely how these criminal cases are and are not, do and do not stay on people's criminal records is something that I'd like to follow in my next piece.

Brigid Bergin: We look forward to more of your reporting, Paige. Great work here on this. Stephen, as always-

Stephen: I'll see you next week.

Brigid Bergin: -transit week here on all of our shows. We're going to leave it there for now. Thank you both, Paige Oamek and Stephen Nessen, from the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom. Really appreciate you.

Paige: Thank you.

Stephen: Thanks.

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