Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
Renewed enforcement is coming to the 11th Street block between First Avenue and Avenue A that has become the de facto staging and parking area for delivery workers and their e-bikes.
Notices posted in the area state that, effective Wednesday, Oct. 7, bikes should no longer be secured to city poles, DOT signs, Parks Department fences or other city property. The NYPD says another enforcement operation involving the removal of illegally secured bikes is possible, though no date has been set.
The ongoing situation on 11th Street came up several times during Community Board 3's full board meeting Tuesday night, including during remarks by Assemblymember Keith Powers.
Powers said the 9th Precinct plans to resume enforcement involving bikes illegally secured to city property. He also said Sanitation services would be increased to provide more regular cleanups.
"We're trying to do this in kind of a humane way, while also recognizing enforcement is just absolutely part of the equation," Powers said.
CB3 District Manager Susan Stetzer offered a more detailed look at why the problem has proved difficult to resolve.
Stetzer said there are probably more than 100 e-bikes on the block, many belonging to delivery workers who commute by subway from the outer boroughs and leave their bikes near where they work in the East Village.
"It is not illegal to have the bikes overnight. There is just no law against that," she said during the meeting.
Stetzer said the bikes must be left in legal parking spaces or corrals, but there aren't enough of either to accommodate all of them.
Stetzer said workers previously tried spreading the bikes around the neighborhood, only to have some stolen. With the bikes costing more than $1,000 and serving as the workers' means of making a living, she said they began concentrating them in one location where they could be watched.
She called the conditions "an unfair burden on the block," while arguing that the larger problem is a lack of infrastructure for delivery workers, including places to wait between orders.
"I'm going to say the reason there is no place to accommodate them is a failure of the city to plan and govern," Stetzer said.
She noted that the City Council office is paying for supplemental cleaning and the Department of Sanitation is providing additional service. JOCO, one of the companies that rents e-bikes to delivery workers, is also looking for fenced-in outdoor space, she said, and has been discussing a possible site referred by the Council office.
"We've asked the city to help us look for sites," Stetzer said. "It’s not for lack of trying."
An 'overwhelming' situation
Residents continue to push for a longer-term solution. One nearby resident who recently contacted EVG described the concentration of bikes along 11th Street as overwhelming and said previous sweeps provided little more than a temporary fix.
The resident suggested relocating bike storage to a less residential area and argued that the delivery companies themselves should help provide dedicated storage.
The renewed focus on the block follows several previous attempts to address conditions along 11th Street. During a
July 2025 sweep, dozens of e-bikes and mopeds were removed after being secured to scaffolding and poles. Subsequent
efforts included opening space at the nearby Lower East Side Playground for delivery workers to rest.
The Oct. 7 notices have been posted alongside separate signs referencing Oct. 1, creating some confusion about what will happen — and when.
An NYPD source clarified the difference for EVG.
The white notice concerns bikes secured to city property and serves as advance warning that, effective Oct. 7, bikes should not be attached to city poles, DOT signs, Parks Department fences or other city property.
For now, the NYPD described the effort as educational.
“Education, education, education,” the source said. The advance notice is intended to make sure delivery workers understand the rules before another enforcement operation takes place.
Another operation involving cutting locks and chains and removing bikes is possible, the source said, although no date has been set. Any bikes removed would be vouchered and stored using the same process as during previous operations.
The yellow notice concerns something different: the regular Thursday Sanitation cleanup.
Those cleanups have typically taken place at 9 a.m., when many of the bikes are still parked on the block. Representatives for delivery workers told officials that many workers arrive later in the day and begin moving the bikes around 2 p.m.
Officials are therefore shifting the cleanup to 5 p.m., when Sanitation should have better access to the curb and street.
And about the conflicting times printed on the yellow notice — 5 a.m. in one place and 5 p.m. in another?
The NYPD source said 5 a.m. is a typo. The intended cleanup time is 5 p.m.
As EVG has reported, the sweeps and cleanups have yet to resolve the underlying problem: Enforcement may clear illegally secured bikes, but it doesn't answer the larger question of where the workers — and their bikes — are supposed to go.
A few scenes from a particularly lively Sunday service...
