Dark side of micro-mobility

Photo:Spencer Platt/Getty Image

From City Journal:

It was just after midnight on Tuesday, June 20, when a Lower East Side deli worker saw smoke pouring from the shuttered HQ E-Bike Repair shop at 80 Madison Street. The worker called 911, and the fire department arrived within four minutes. 

Firefighters began pulling residents, some unconscious, from the smoke-filled apartment building above the shop. But they couldn’t stop the intense fire from burning through to the apartments above and into the building next door. It even blasted through the shop’s metal security gate. 

Four people died in the blaze, and two others were critically injured.

Fire officials were familiar with the repair shop; it had been previously cited for improperly storing and charging e-bike batteries. “It is very clear that this was caused by lithium-ion batteries and e-bikes,” New York City fire commissioner Laura Kavanagh said at a news conference....

Not a new issue: How to Prevent an Electric-Bike Fire in 2021.