Eric Adams bikes to work on second day in office: ‘On the road again!’ (A.K.A The NY Bike thread)
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E-bike battery fires pushing NYC toward a ban in public housing
Poorly made cells, tough work, and lack of space all contribute to deadly rise.
arstechnica.com
E-bike battery fires pushing NYC toward a ban in public housing
Poorly made cells, tough work, and lack of space all contribute to deadly rise.
KEVIN PURDY - 9/1/2022, 1:45 PM
Enlarge / Delivery workers in NYC have banded together to protect their bikes, improve conditions and wages, and, now, advocate against an outright e-bike ban in public housing.
A rising number of fires caused by lithium-ion batteries has spurred New York City's public housing authority to propose entirely banning e-bikes from their buildings. But the causes are not so simple, the solutions fiendishly complex, and the repercussions potentially devastating to thousands of hard-pressed delivery workers.
New York City firefighters have responded to 26 battery-based fires in public housing since 2021, according to reporting from The City. That includes fires in early August that killed a 5-year-old girl and 36-year-old woman in Harlem, and a death and injury in The Bronx. And battery-based fires are rising elsewhere in the city resulting in 73 injuries and five deaths, according to Canary Media, with 130 investigations so far this year. It's a sharp upturn from 104 battery fire calls the year before, 44 in 2020, and 30 in 2019.
The New York City Housing Authority's (NYCHA) response is a proposal to ban all e-bikes, and e-bike batteries, from public housing grounds by October 15. City officials advised NYCHA to ban battery-driven devices from housing in 2018, but NYCHA didn't move on a policy change until recently. (NYCHA is taking written comments on the proposed rule changes at lease.changes@nycha.nyc.gov.) Advocates for delivery workers and micro-mobility are pushing back, arguing that a blanket ban would punish low-income and immigrant delivery workers and generally discourage e-bikes as a lower-carbon means of getting around Gotham.
Lithium-ion battery fires get headlines, however, and for a reason. They accelerate quickly, burn extremely hot in thermal runaway reactions, and are self-sustainingly hard to extinguish. The typical e-bike battery is made up of dozens of individual AA-sized batteries (18,650 cells), wired together and managed by a battery management system (BMS). Any of those batteries could be poorly made, shorted, overheated, or mismanaged in charging by faulty, damaged, or water-logged easements, connections, or BMS.
UL has an e-bike certification standard (UL 2849) that includes battery design and encasement, which is typically utilized by reputable brands. But among New York City's estimated 65,000 bike-riding delivery workers, there are many DIY e-bike conversions, lesser-known brands and imports, and modifications to uncap voltage or speed limits. "It's not about high quality. It's about 'What can I afford?'" Hildalyn Colón-Hernández, policy director for delivery labor group Los Deliveristas Unidos, told Curbed in January. Even with UL certification, low-cost e-bike vendors can push hard on battery cells' parameters to eke out performance or range at higher risk.
That would all be potentially hazardous enough if the city's e-bikes were ridden under what manufacturers and their lawyers would call "normal use," but most delivery work is anything but. Charlie Welch, CEO of battery vendor Zapbatt, told The Next Web that, while vendors set standards, "everyone rides (e-bikes) like they stole them." Riders push bikes' speed and range all day, then leave them to fully charge overnight, perhaps the fastest way to age a battery. And aged batteries are even more prone to accidents and fires, as dendrites grow and threaten to bridge the anode and cathode in a battery.
An outright public housing ban would arrive long before the broader changes needed to address fires. Both e-bike advocates and opponents have recommended stricter regulations on batteries, whether at import or in the retail chain. Battery design and composition improvements are likely coming but are nowhere near ready to replace standard lithium-ion yet. Los Deliveristas Unidos is working toward communal bike storage, battery-charging, and bathroom "hubs" for delivery workers. One is underway in Brooklyn, and others could soon follow.
Coursing underneath all these solutions are the general conditions that have delivery drivers glued to their phones, sprinting to grab single orders of food and hauling them across a city that's still largely oriented toward cars, then repeating this dozens of times, sometimes in a single shift, for an average of $12.21 per hour, according to a 2021 survey of 500 app-based couriers.
One cheap and readily available bit of help suggested by many e-bike veterans in forums and subreddits (and in Canary Media's reporting): outlet timers. For $8 or less, e-bike owners can leave a battery plugged in overnight but ensure that it only charges for as long as it typically needs to reach full capacity. It's not a fix, but it could mean fewer fires.
*10 year old podcast episode thats still relevant.
Heard on All Things Considered
It could be worse.
The normal bike market is pretty straightforward — supplier, middleman and buyer. The market for stolen bikes has the same roles, but different players. Here's a quick look at how it works.
The Supplier
The supplier, instead of Schwinn or Cannondale, is the bike thief.
Hal Ruzzal, a bike mechanic at Bicycle Habitat in Manhattan, describes two types of thieves.
Thief Type 1: "Your standard drug addict."
For a heroin addict, Ruzzal says, a "front wheel is one hit, rear wheel is two hits, and a leather seat is three to four hits."
Thief Type 2: The professional
This is the guy who "comes around in a van with an angle grinder and he steals a bike by walking up to the bike wearing a bicycle helmet and a messenger bag and he actually looks like he owns the bike."
The Middle Man
The bike thieves, or suppliers, then need to sell to the stolen bike to a middleman — the stolen bike salesman.
In the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, stolen bike salesmen walk around with spare bike parts tied to shopping carts and ride around on bikes they're trying to sell.
The Customer
In the Tenderloin, sellers sometimes go door-to-door looking for buyers.
In New York, restaurant delivery guys are a big market. You need a bike to be a delivery guy, and stolen bikes are cheap — sometimes $10 or $20, fully loaded.
This brings up a fundamental question: If stolen bikes are so cheap, is it even worth it for thieves to rip them off?
"The juice is okay," said Rohin Dhar, founder of the company Priceonomics, who recently wrote about stolen bikes on his blog.But the squeeze — the effort you have to put in, and the risk of getting caught — is zero."
The key, he says: "There's just no risk to the crime."
Joe McCloskey, a police sergeant in the Tenderloin who set up stings to catch bike thieves in the act, agrees.
"Nobody went to jail," McCloskey says. "It's not a high-priority crime."
The Economics Of Stealing Bikes
September 7, 2012 2:58 PM ETHeard on All Things Considered
It could be worse.
The normal bike market is pretty straightforward — supplier, middleman and buyer. The market for stolen bikes has the same roles, but different players. Here's a quick look at how it works.
The Supplier
The supplier, instead of Schwinn or Cannondale, is the bike thief.
Hal Ruzzal, a bike mechanic at Bicycle Habitat in Manhattan, describes two types of thieves.
Thief Type 1: "Your standard drug addict."
For a heroin addict, Ruzzal says, a "front wheel is one hit, rear wheel is two hits, and a leather seat is three to four hits."
Thief Type 2: The professional
This is the guy who "comes around in a van with an angle grinder and he steals a bike by walking up to the bike wearing a bicycle helmet and a messenger bag and he actually looks like he owns the bike."
The Middle Man
The bike thieves, or suppliers, then need to sell to the stolen bike to a middleman — the stolen bike salesman.
In the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, stolen bike salesmen walk around with spare bike parts tied to shopping carts and ride around on bikes they're trying to sell.
The Customer
In the Tenderloin, sellers sometimes go door-to-door looking for buyers.
In New York, restaurant delivery guys are a big market. You need a bike to be a delivery guy, and stolen bikes are cheap — sometimes $10 or $20, fully loaded.
This brings up a fundamental question: If stolen bikes are so cheap, is it even worth it for thieves to rip them off?
"The juice is okay," said Rohin Dhar, founder of the company Priceonomics, who recently wrote about stolen bikes on his blog.But the squeeze — the effort you have to put in, and the risk of getting caught — is zero."
The key, he says: "There's just no risk to the crime."
Joe McCloskey, a police sergeant in the Tenderloin who set up stings to catch bike thieves in the act, agrees.
"Nobody went to jail," McCloskey says. "It's not a high-priority crime."
WaveMolecules
Superstar
i ride this bridge every thursday. i was on that lane THIS morning. thats insane.
my neighborhood. youd be surprised how many people in community facebook groups HATE the bike lanes. they bytching about parking
Cyclist killed after being struck by tractor-trailer in Brooklyn
Police say the victim was riding his bicycle along Pennsylvania Avenue in East New York Tuesday afternoon when he was struck by a tractor-trailer that was turning onto Linden Boulevard.
abc7ny.com
Cyclist killed after being struck by tractor-trailer in Brooklyn
Thursday, September 1, 2022
A cyclist has died after being struck by a tractor-trailer in East New York, Brooklyn. CeFaan Kim has the latest details.
EAST NEW YORK, Brooklyn (WABC) -- A cyclist has died after being struck by a tractor-trailer in Brooklyn.
Police say the victim was riding his bicycle along Pennsylvania Avenue in East New York Tuesday afternoon when he was struck by a tractor-trailer that was turning onto Linden Boulevard.
The 43-year-old cyclist was later identified as Jarrod Little.
The 52-year-old driver of the tractor-trailer remained at the scene.
Police are still investigating what led up to the fatal crash, but Transportation Alternatives blamed it, in part, on inequitable street design.
The organization said that in the past five years, 128 people have been injured at the same intersection, and a pedestrian was killed at the location in March 2022.
They say both streets are known to be among the city's most dangerous, labeled by the city as Vision Zero Priority Corridors.
Additionally, they say that no other council district had more fatalities in the past two years than the 17 in District 42, where more than three-quarters of residents are Black, 97% are non-white, and more than 25% live below the poverty line.
Despite this, they say the city has not made the 11-lane, 150-foot-wide Linden Boulevard or the 7-lane, 78-foot-wide Pennsylvania Boulevard safer.
There are no leading pedestrian intervals, no turn-calming measures installed, and no bike lanes.
"All New Yorkers should be able to ride a bike without fear of death or serious injury on our streets," Executive Director Danny Harris said. "Yet as long as our streets are designed like highways, prioritizing the movement and storage of private vehicles above all else, people will continue to die. The solutions to the crisis of traffic violence are simple. Prioritize people over cars. Our city's leaders must demonstrate the political will to repurpose space from cars and trucks and build physical infrastructure that protects all street users, and gives every New Yorker safe, equitable and sustainable options to travel around the five boroughs. "
The Department of Transportation released the following statement:
"Every loss of life on our streets is a preventable tragedy. This administration has invested a historic $900 million toward redesigning our streets to support safe transit and bike infrastructure and additional pedestrian space-all with an explicit equity focus to ensure we are delivering this life-saving work to all corners of the city."
The DOT says despite an uptick in traffic deaths this year due to reckless driving, it has been one of the safest years on record for pedestrians and cyclists.
MischievousMonkey
Gor bu dëgër
How is the project coming along? Has construction started?