NYC Council weighs seven pedicab bills on meters, fares and electric assist

A City Council committee on Oct. 7 heard seven bills that would put meters in New York City pedicabs, set fares, allow electric pedal assist and move oversight of the industry to the Taxi and Limousine Commission. No vote was taken, according to a review of the hearing record by NYC Politics.

The Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection is chaired by Council Member Harvey D. Epstein, who represents District 2. Most of the bills grew out of a roundtable convened by the Midtown Community Justice Center, which hears criminal pedicab summonses.

Epstein said an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 pedicabs operate in the city, against a cap of 850 registration plates. The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), which licenses the industry, said 330 pedicabs are registered, with about 600 licensed drivers and 130 licensed businesses.

That leaves the Council deciding how to rewrite the rules for a business that mostly operates outside them. The agencies backed parts of the package but warned about cost.

“We’ve got to start over. There’s nothing in this industry right now is working.”

Ira Goldapper, a TLC deputy commissioner, said Brewer’s Int. 993, which would make that move, “would be extremely costly to implement going well beyond existing resources.” He added, “we do not believe this bill is the best path forward.”

What would riders and drivers see?

Under Int. 77, from Council Member Gale A. Brewer of District 6, the ride timer would sit on the back of the bicycle seat, in passengers’ view.

Brewer’s Int. 992 would require meters and plates with a scannable code showing the registration number and business name. It would also require driver training, ban noisemaking devices and remove jail as a penalty.

Int. 64, from Council Member Virginia Maloney of District 4, would bar pedicabs from stopping or picking up passengers within 50 feet of a theater entrance in the theater district. Int. 673 would set fixed per-minute fares, indexed to inflation.

Int. 1026 would open taxi relief stands, where drivers park to rest, to pedicabs and add 15 in Midtown. A motor under 750 watts that stops assisting at 15 miles per hour would be legal under Int. 1063.

Brewer said 172 pedicab complaints were filed in 2025, and that tourists have been charged $500 to nearly $1,000 for a 20-minute ride. “We want legitimate drivers and businesses to operate safely and fairly,” she said.

Christina Hansen, a carriage driver who lives in Hell’s Kitchen, said today’s plates are small stickers that are hard to read. The fix, she said: “it’s called a license plate.”

What the city agencies said

Carlos Ortiz, DCWP’s chief of staff, said the agency supports Int. 77 and the intent of Int. 992. He said meters would bring pricing clarity and that “imprisonment should not be a penalty” for pedicab violations.

On fixed fares, he said “price controls can also be an overly burdensome measure” for the agency and law-abiding businesses. He said DCWP lacks the expertise to design a safety course and flagged the cost of scannable plates.

Ortiz relayed the Police Department’s concern that electric assist would be hard for officers to enforce. A motor is now grounds for a summons or confiscation, DCWP said.

Epstein cited an analysis of about 1,200 criminal pedicab summonses from 2025 that found just 9% ended in any criminal or civil punishment. “There’s no incentive to comply with the law,” he said.

Street enforcement falls to the NYPD and the Parks Department, DCWP said. “Our folks are not police officers,” Ortiz said. DCWP said it could not act on any of the 135 pedicab complaints it got in the past nine months, mostly for lack of information.

Goldapper said the TLC has about 85 street enforcement officers and “any sort of diversion of resources is really going to be pulling resources from the outer boroughs.” Pedicab rules, he said, cannot be “a copy and paste of how we regulate taxis.” He said about 180,000 licensed drivers already share 107 relief stands, and the TLC opposes adding pedicabs.

What drivers and businesses said

The director of the Midtown Community Justice Center said the system “simultaneously criminalizes a primarily immigrant workforce,” while “the things that people really care about are not being addressed in court.”

The director said moving oversight to the TLC would work only with more resources for that agency. Registration signage now “is printed off a computer, anybody could make one,” the director said.

The president of the New York Pedicab Alliance, a drivers’ group, asked for legal pedal assist, clear pricing, training, rest areas and insurance relief. “We’re not asking to go faster,” he said. “Safe pedal assistance should not be a privilege.”

Kenneth Winter, a 23-year driver with the alliance, said years of pedaling caused neuropathy in his legs. “I need the electrical assist because I need to be able to keep working,” he said. Police confiscated his licensed, insured pedicab over the motor, costing him about 20 days of work, he said.

The alliance president said insurance that cost about $600 per pedicab before the pandemic now costs almost $6,000.

A 53-year-old driver from Niger who lives in the Bronx asked the committee to legalize pedal assist. “We are not asking for a handout. We are asking for a fair opportunity,” the driver said.

Business groups backed the package. David Saltonstall of the Central Park Conservancy said that around Grand Army Plaza and Columbus Circle, “those areas feel more like a shakedown.”

Christine Nicholas, chair of the Broadway Association, urged the Council to “simplify this process and consolidate these bills” and keep the NYPD in enforcement.

Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, backed TLC oversight, civil penalties tied to licenses and electric assist. He said criminal summonses fail because police cannot meet discovery rules for an offense that carries jail time.

What happens next?

The record does not show when the committee will vote. DCWP agreed to get NYPD data on summons outcomes, confiscations and complaints, and to estimate the cost of scannable plates if the bill advances.

Epstein called TLC staffing “a good budget conversation for us and this spring.” The committee accepted written testimony for 72 hours after the hearing.

Epstein said he worried that even with the TLC in charge, the city “might be having the same conversation in three years.” Harris answered, “Well, I hope not.”