Sorry, Manhattan: Scooter rental companies like Bird and Lime cannot operate in the borough.

When did lawmakers get into the business of regulating bikes and scooters?

In the early 2000s, the city tried preventing a large group of cyclists from gathering in Union Square (the rides were called Critical Mass). Later, the city began creating pedestrian plazas and rethought the role cars play in streets.

Bike and scooter regulation went into high gear around 2013, when New York City’s bike-sharing program debuted. It offered traditional bikes that were parked at one docking station and could be returned to another.

Why is the state legislation changing now?

The politics: The legislative session in Albany is ending and a lot of major policies are hammered out at the last minute. State lawmakers were responding to a crackdown on e-bikes that began in New York City in 2017.

The technology: A writer at Streetsblog, which focuses on mobility, said last month, “Thanks to a pile of start-up cash, a struggling transit system and some major advances in battery technology, the e-bike market is ripe for a huge expansion in New York.”

The editor of that website, Gersh Kuntzman, told me there was one more reason: Electric bikes proved to be really popular in the city-sanctioned bike-sharing program. Those bikes, he said, “give you a little bit of a boost.”

“You can get to work without being sweaty,” he added. “These are concerns people have.”

Aren’t electric bikes legal already?