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The NYPD is confiscating e-bikes along a clogged East Village street
By
Willow Higgins
Published Oct 29, 2026 at 6:08 p.m. ET
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Willow Higgins/Gothamist
By
Willow Higgins
Published Oct 29, 2026 at 6:08 p.m. ET
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A tiff over parked e-bikes is escalating on a busy thoroughfare in the East Village.
An NYPD spokesperson said on Thursday that police confiscated 11 e-bikes parked along East 11th Street and First Avenue this week, where neighboring business owners and residents have been complaining for months about idle delivery bikes clogging sidewalks and curbs, sometimes by the hundreds.
The spokesperson said the e-bikes were removed because they had been parked illegally or out of concern over the bike’s lithium-ion batteries sparking fires. The department had given the owners three weeks’ warning before beginning the enforcement, and the owners will be able to retrieve their property, according to the NYPD.
Members of a newly formed coalition, the East Village Beautification Project, convened a group meeting on the block Thursday afternoon, against a backdrop of dozens of parked e-bikes, and urged the city to intervene further.
“Delivery workers deserve safe places to park and charge their bikes, but not at this location at the expense of everyone else who lives and works here," Christine Renzi, the coalition’s leader, said in a statement.
A newly formed coalition, the East Village Beautification Project, convened a group meeting on the block Thursday afternoon, against a backdrop of dozens of parked e-bikes, and urged further intervention by the city.
Willow Higgins/Gothamist
“If the city, local elected officials, and our local community board will not take this seriously, we will make sure they cannot keep looking the other way," she added.
Renzi said the coalition is advocating for bike parking to be dispersed along other nearby blocks – just as Citi Bike dock stations are distributed to multiple sites – so that the impact isn’t so concentrated.
But other community advocates worried that confiscating e-bikes would hurt immigrant New Yorkers.
“People are going to lose their means of livelihood with no warning and no education,” said Susan Stetzer, the district manager of an East Village community board, said at a meeting on Tuesday ahead of the enforcement.
A spokesperson from Cafewal, a community kitchen and local resource center, said many of the e-bikes are used by immigrants who frequent the site, and that the organization conducts weekly cleanups of the area. He said the drivers need a place to go, and would welcome more formal parking.
Mamadu Djalo, a delivery driver from Guinea-Bissau who spends time on the East Village block, said removing bikes affects drivers and their families.
“They're surviving on this delivery job, so there's nothing else to do,” Djalo said.
Djalo said that he didn’t object to spreading the parking to other areas, but added that the neighborhood is important to the workers, too.
“ We spend time together here,” Djalo said. “We are together like one family.”
Tagged
economy
manhattan
transportation
Willow Higgins
Willow Higgins covers changes in New York City neighborhoods for WNYC and Gothamist. She has previously reported on wrongful convictions, corruption in district attorney offices and Texas' child welfare system.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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