But officials and advocates have been peppered with questions in recent days as the Hudson County city prepares for a new e-bike safety ordinance that will go into effect next week.
The ordinance includes new rules about the lithium-ion batteries that power the bikes.
Under Hoboken’s ordinance, the use, sale and repair of second-hand batteries are banned. E-bike and e-scooter riders will also be prohibited from charging or storing their devices in the common areas of residential properties with three or more units.
Anyone found to be violating the ordinance will be issued a warning. If the problem continues, violators can be slapped with fines of up to $2,000 per violation, per day.
E-bikes are a fast and convenient way to zip around a city, and have skyrocketed in popularity since the pandemic. But they have also become associated with a fast-moving kind of fire that can ignite if their batteries overheat or explode.
As of January 2024, there had been 445 recorded incidents of lithium battery-related fires in the U.S., resulting in 38 deaths and 214 injuries.
Hoboken’s new ordinance may seem simple, but Mike Fritz, who worked with the city to craft it, believes it to be “the finest, in terms of ensuring safe use of these products, of any city in America right now.”
Fritz, the co-founder and chief technological officer of the consulting firm Human Powered Solutions, has spent much of the last three decades focused on lithium-ion battery safety. After New York City officials decided they had to address a rash of deadly battery fires, Fritz was one of their first calls.
In December, it was Fritz’s work across the Hudson that attracted the notice of Andrew Wilson, the executive director of Bike Hoboken, a transportation safety and advocacy nonprofit.
Wilson had been keeping an eye on the Hoboken City Council, which was readying to vote on a harsher lithium-ion battery ordinance. The measure was so restrictive that Wilson and his team feared exasperated landlords would give up on trying to meet its conditions, instead banning e-bikes from their properties altogether.
Wilson asked Fritz to write the city council a letter explaining the problem.
“I basically said, ‘Hey, before you take dramatic action, let’s take a breath, postpone the vote and talk about this,‘” Fritz said.
“The city council was very willing to listen,” Wilson recalled. “They heard the community’s concerns, they heard the feedback, and they postponed that original ordinance.”
The city council, guided by Fritz and several city officials, including its public safety director and the chief of the fire department, got to work. A little over two months later, it announced the overhauled ordinance.
“I’m proud of those guys,” Fritz said of the city council. “They’ve done their homework.”
The city council unanimously adopted the ordinance Feb. 19.
In addressing high-risk batteries and unsafe storage practices, the new measures will ensure lithium-ion batteries used in the city comply with standards set by UL Solutions, a safety testing business that certifies products like e-bikes, local officials said.
But more importantly, the new rules will keep e-bikes on roads, Wilson said.
“E-bikes, they shrink cities,” he said. “They help connect people to jobs, schools, businesses they need to get to. And they do that while mitigating climate change and reducing parking demand.”
The ordinance will take effect Tuesday following a public awareness and education campaign. The most common question residents have is whether their e-bikes are about to be taken away from them, Wilson said.
But as Public Safety Director Ken Ferrante made clear in a press release: “We are not banning e-bikes or e-scooters in Hoboken.”
Federal lawmakers are currently weighing an e-bike battery bill that would require clearer safety guidelines.
“So, really, Hoboken just is getting ahead of the curve," Wilson explained. “It’s smart. It’s pretty reasonable.”
At the local level, there’s still more work to be done. Wilson said he would like to see the city concentrate next on creating safer storage options for e-bikes, like fire-safe rooms with suppressant systems and charging outlets.
“I don’t see what just got passed being the last word on this,” he added.
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