Opposition amongst community associations on Manhattan’s wealthy Upper West Side has grown to the planned transformation of a landmarked subway plaza into a large electric-bike charging “Deliverista Hub,” where the city’s burgeoning force of delivery bike drivers could rest and recharge their bikes. 

The charging station, to be built by the federally funded Worker’s Justice Project, would be used for electric bikes, which have a long history of catastrophic explosions, feet away from a subway station used by thousands. 

The proposed charging station would be situated on the southern island of the West 72nd Street subway station at 71st Street, at the heart of one of the wealthiest parts of New York City, where multimillion-dollar condos overlook an express subway station that is one stop away from Times Square.

The neighborhood’s residents have long been heavily reliant on food delivery employees, whose presence has increased markedly with the advent of Grubhub, Uber Eats, and other services, and delivery employees’ increasing use of electric bikes, which allow them to complete more deliveries. Many delivery drivers are independent contractors whose income is entirely tips.

Yet despite the neighborhood’s use of delivery drivers, the Deliverista Hub is a “clearly terrible and dangerous idea,” the leader of the West 71st Street block association, Katina Ellison, stated to a local news outlet, West Side Rag. Ms. Ellison referred to the intersection as “the bowtie of death,” given its “three narrow entry points for accessing the public plaza.”

A petition created last spring by the community association, in conjunction with the neighboring West 72nd and West 73rd Street Block Associations, has nearly 1,000 signatories. “After careful consideration, the West 71st, 72nd, and 73rd Street Block Associations strongly oppose the current proposed location at the south side pedestrian plaza where the express 1, 2, and 3 subway stations are located,” the petition reads. 

They added, “This location is already extremely congested and poses a threat to pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike, especially older adults, people with disabilities, and caregivers in our community.”

“The current proposal does not address potential fire safety issues associated with the batteries on e-bikes, nor does it address maintenance and access concerns.”

In addition to the block associations, the local Community Board’s Park and Environment Committee, which serves only as an advisory role for both public and private development matters, also voted against the proposal, the chairwoman of the board, Natasha Nazmi, told the local outlet.

When the community board met on the proposal in March, a board member said the subway stop is used by 15,000 people each weekday and 12,000 a day on weekends. The board voted 27-8 against putting the Deliverista Hub at the site.

Netizens online excoriated the development plans. “This is one of the few handicapped accessible stations on the UWS and blocking access with e-bikes and riders will make entry impossible” one post read. “The hub belongs in Midtown.”

Another commentator on the Rag noted that similar accommodations already exist within the area, and “Instead of fixing the bike parking mess in front of McDonald’s a block away on 71 and Amsterdam, this will create another obstacle course, trash, and other unforeseen [sic.] issues for pedestrians and do nothing to improve quality of life for the neighborhood.”

The proposed charging site has backing from both state and local Democratic officials. The delivery driver rest area is part of a pilot program introduced by Mayor Adams and Senator Schumer in October 2022.

The project promised to repurpose abandoned newsstands into charging stations and rest areas for the city’s delivery drivers, whose transportation method of choice is often the hazard-prone lithium-ion electric bicycle. Although numbers fluctuate, the total of delivery drivers in the city has been pegged in the range of 65,000 to 85,000.  

The project is funded by the Worker’s Justice Project, a group that advocates for government intervention on behalf of the oft-illegal immigrant drivers. The organization received $1.17 million in federal funding for the electric bike lounges. The local community board chairwoman states that the site was chosen by the New York City Parks Department for development. 

In addition to working with federal and state officials, the Worker’s Justice Project has coordinated with the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. On June 8, the Workers Justice Project thanked the democratic socialists on X for supplying delivery bicyclists with N-95 face masks. It is unclear where the DSA received the funding for the project. 

As commentators noted, the proposed development is not the first electric bicycle charging station to stoke controversy on the swanky Upper West Side. On December 11, the Fire Department of New York’s Special Inspection Unit shut down a charging station run by a delivery app company on West 102nd and Broadway, a local news outlet, West Side Spirit, reported. The storefront turned charging station was photographed by residents to be haphazardly charging the potentially explosive batteries. 

In 2022, according to the Fire Department of New York, there were more than 140 fires attributed to electric bike explosions. In addition to explosions, the proliferation of high-speed electric bikes has been suggested to be linked to the rise in bicycle-related accidents and fatalities in the five boroughs. There have been 40 deaths in 2023 as a result of bike crashes, a report from the organization Transportation Alternatives estimates.