NYC Parks Electric-Vehicles Pilot Program Quietly Extended Through 2025; Includes Central and Riverside Parks

By Gus Saltonstall

The pilot program allowing electric bikes and electric scooters on drives and greenways in New York City parks, including Central and Riverside Parks, has been extended through May 31, 2025, a Parks Department spokesperson confirmed to West Side Rag this week.

The program, dubbed the “NYC Parks Electric Micromobility Pilot,” was led by Mayor Eric Adams and launched on June 20, 2023, with an original end date of May 31 this year.

The Parks Department has quietly extended the pilot for another year, though, as confirmed exclusively to the Rag. The city agency did not issue a press release or post on social media about the extension of the NYC Parks Electric Micromobility Pilot.

“After a successful first year collecting information from the public and NYC Parks staff, we are committed to extending the electric micromobility pilot period through May 2025, in coordination with our partners on the City Hall Electric Micromobility task force,” a Parks Department spokesperson told us. “By extending the pilot period, we can continue to gain insights and test new methods for how electric micromobility can be safely managed for the benefit of all parks users, and how to prevent heavier vehicles like mopeds from being operated in parks.”

The Parks Department is assessing information from the first year of the pilot to “develop new safety initiatives.”

The Parks Department spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests from the Rag to share the collected information they are assessing, or the survey results that a city agency typically gathers during a pilot program.

The pilot program was launched to specifically look at electric bike and electric scooter use within city parks’ greenways and drives. A park greenway is a designated path that is used for walking, jogging, rolling, stroller pushing, cycling, skating, and more.

A park drive, on the other hand, is a road inside a park that is used by authorized vehicles, as well as walkers, joggers, cyclists, and others.

The pilot program will continue to only include park drives and greenway paths that had already allowed non-electric bicycles prior to the pilot.

The West Drive in Central Park and the Hudson River Greenway in Riverside Park are among the best-known examples of these types of pathways on the Upper West Side.

A collection of readers also notified West Side Rag about the disappearance of traffic-related signs in Central Park, specifically those that have to do with dismounting “wheeled vehicles” at certain points.

A spokesperson from the Central Park Conservancy confirmed that some signs have been removed, but it did not have anything to do with the extension of the electric-vehicle pilot program. Instead, the Conservancy said it was related to routine maintenance of damaged signs, and that they would be replaced at some point later in the summer.

West Side Rag will update this article if the Parks Department gets back to us with the information collected during the first year of the pilot program.

Thanks to Renee Baruch for the tip.

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