New York City’s public housing authority is mulling a ban on e-bikes and e-bike batteries in apartments and common areas — a change that’s being met with pushback and criticism.
, said NYCHA had counted 25 fires on its properties started by lithium-ion batteries, though Goldblatt declined to confirm that.
FDNY data shows fires from lithium-ion batteries have surged over the past two years. After years of advocacy, most e-bikes and mopeds werein 2020, amid the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their popularity has since soared. Through early August, an FDNY spokesperson said lithium-ion batteries caused 121 fires, 66 injuries and 5 deaths, across the five boroughs, surpassing totals of 104 fires and four deaths from all of 2021. Both years represented a dramatic increase over prior years.
“The safety issues are certainly real and they must be addressed,” said City Councilmember Alexa Aviles, who chairs the public housing committee. “[E-bikes are] a greener form of transportation that we want to encourage. They're here to stay and I think it's a growing market and it would just behoove us to really think about the issue comprehensively.”
“They're enormously popular because of how useful they are in a city that doesn't have great transportation options for certain segments of the community,” said Baruch Herzfeld, with the group PopWheels, which is piloting charging stations for scooters.
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