Pols jump into e-scooter fight
New Yorkers are jumping on e-scooters in growing numbers — as city officials are considering making them legal.
E-scooters and other electric-powered rides are becoming a common presence in bike lanes and on sidewalks and streets even though they can cost riders a fine of up to $500.
Tech and media exec Charles Forman caught a break with a $50 ticket on the Hudson River Greenway in lower Manhattan on March 31. He showed the Daily News the summons a Parks Department enforcement officer wrote him for riding his escooter — bought on Amazon for $500 — even though it had run out of juice.
Forman said the ticket wasn't enough to kill the good vibes that day.
“People came up and said, ‘Hey, where'd you get that? How far does it go? Can you buy it on Amazon? How much was it?' ” Forman recalled.
Forman and other New Yorkers are ditching the subway, app-hailed cars and bikes for breezy rides on e-scooters, which can range in cost from a few hundred dollars to more than a thousand.
“It is the future,” Forman said.
The Parks Department did not respond to questions from The News. A police rep said the NYPD does not track summonses handed out specifically for riding an e-scooter.
A spokesman for Mayor de Blasio told The News e-scooters are not legal under city law, but state law is a bit murkier.
“Under current state law, motorized scooters and bikes are considered motor vehicles like cars and motorcycles,” the Department of Motor Vehicles said in a statement to The News. “But they lack the equipment required to be registered and issued license plates, and therefore cannot be operated anywhere public motor vehicle traffic is allowed.”
City Council Transportation Committee Chairman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) and Councilman Rafael Espinal (D-Brooklyn) are drafting legislation to make e-scooters legal in the five boroughs.
“The city has to update its laws to make sure that no one's being penalized for finding alternative modes of transportation,” Espinal said.
“We will closely review any proposed legislation with an eye toward keeping people safe on our crowded streets and sidewalks,” de Blasio spokesman Seth Stein said in a statement.
NYCeWheels, a bike retailer in east Midtown, had to stop selling e-scooters in July, according to sales and mechanic employee Steven Sellens.
He said the store had been selling up to several a day. “They were about a thousand bucks a pop, so those were pretty good sales,” he said.
Bird, a company that runs e-scooter sharing systems, has been lobbying City Council members and setting up demonstrations where riders can go for a spin.
Jessica Rich, 31, a therapist from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Friday took her first trip on an e-scooter that her wife had bought her for a birthday gift.
She had wanted one since seeing them during a trip to Tel Aviv, especially with the L train shutdown coming in April.
Rich was unaware she was riding on the wrong side of the law. “They look like so much fun,” she said. “It's superpractical.”
William Hohauser, a videographer in the East Village, said his $1,000 model will pay for itself in unbought, unlimited MetroCards by November.
He got his ride in March when he lost his spot to lock up his bike.
“I didn't want to be on the subway,” he said. “It's just misery on the F train.”