Cooper Square Gets City’s First Outdoor E-Bike Charging Hub

On Feb. 29, The city opened its first of five e-bike charging hubs in the East Village’s Cooper Square located at the corner of 6th Street and Cooper Square on Feb. 29 as part of an overdue six-month pilot program.

The e-bike chargers are part of the Adams administration’s “Charge Safe, Ride Safe” to “support safe e-bike use and prevent deadly lithium-ion battery fires,” that was announced last year.

The other charging hubs are planned to be up in Manhattan and Brooklyn “in the coming weeks,” according to City Hall. They will be found at Essex Market in the Lower East Side, Plaza De Las Americas in Washington Heights, the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park, and Jay and Willoughby streets in Downtown Brooklyn.

Fires blamed on exploding lithium ion batteries killed 18 people and injured 150 others, according the FDNY, which said that it the defective batteries sparked 168 fires in 2023.

As of Feb. 26, this year, there have been 31 lithium-battery fires in the city including a blaze in a Harlem apartment building where Indian-born journalist Fazil Khan was killed, and 17 others were injured.

The new charging station in the East Village will be available to up to 100 delivery workers free of charge during the pilot program. Swobbee, Popwheels and Swiftmile are the three companies that will operate the FDNY-reviewed charging and battery swap stations. Swiftmile provides electrified posts that can recharge an e-bike within two to three hours, while Swobbee and Popwheels provides lockers where subscribing riders can trade their used-up UL-certified e-bike batteries with charged ones.

The delivery workers will be able to sign up for the pilot program, in the coming days, by filling out an online form or coming to an onboarding event in Manhattan or Brooklyn. The first will be held 2-5 p.m. on March 7 at Cooper Square, and the second will be held from 2-5p.m. on March 8 at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

A law banning the sale of uncertified lithium-ion batteries, which are not approved by Underwriters Laboratory (UL) solutions, came into effect six months ago. Now, on Feb. 29, the city is finally acting on their promise to provide charging stations and lockers with UL certified batteries to delivery drivers.

“I can say today that projects like this are going to save lives,” Fire Commissioner, Laura Kavanagh said in the Department of Transportation (DOT) press conference on Feb. 29.

“Fires caused by lithium batteries have grown exponentially every year since 2021,” Kavanaugh said in July 2023 on X, which was then known as Twitter. She’s been leading a campaign to have national standards enacted.

“New Yorkers rely on delivery workers for so much, and this innovative pilot program will test different technologies to make this technology safer as we continue to do all we can to help protect workers from the dangers that lithium-ion batteries can pose,” Mayor Adams said at the DOT press conference on Feb. 29. “By investing in battery-swapping networks and fast-charging e-bike docks, we’re building e-bike-friendly infrastructure and preparing our city’s streets for a new generation of users. Today’s announcement builds on our holistic strategy to ensure that we safely harness the transformative potential of e-bikes in our city.”

“The tremendous growth in electric bikes and other legal, two-wheeled devices provides an exciting glimpse into a future where New Yorkers are less dependent on large, more dangerous vehicles to get around,” Ydanis Rodriguez, DOT Commissioner, said at the press conference.