It’s a measure of how incompetent and unambitious New York’s government has become that the mayor and city council are helpless in dealing with a crisis that didn’t exist three years ago: mass-casualty e-bike battery fires.
The problem is not hard to solve — but it’s impossible to solve any problem when City Hall has become a hand wringing talking shop.
Tuesday morning, an e-bike battery exploded in a Chinatown repair shop.
The ensuing fire killed four people who lived above the store, and injured two others — elderly people who had nothing to do with the facility.
The latest victims bring the death toll from e-mobility “device” fires this year to 13 — and to 23 since 2021.
E-bike blazes — caused when the massive amount of energy stored in substandard batteries spontaneously ignites — are the leading cause of fire death in New York City.
How many people died in e-bike fires in the city’s 367-year municipal existence through 2020? None.
When New York State and City legalized e-bikes in 2020, under the Cuomo and de Blasio administrations, they did not think it through.
They bought bike advocates’ line: e-bikes, powered by batteries, would make life easier for older delivery cyclists, and would encourage New Yorkers to cycle to work.
Instead, e-bikes — as used on New York streets, not in bicycle fantasyland — have been a disaster.
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