New York - The City Council has passed a comprehensive bill to regulate New York City's freewheeling pedicab industry for the first time, bringing to it a level of oversight similar to that imposed on taxis and tour buses.

The bill passed 38-7 on Wednesday over the objections of pedicab drivers, who say the regulations go too far. The bill caps the number of pedicabs that can be operated in the city at 325, bans the use of electric motors that some drivers use to help in pedaling, and requires that operators carry liability insurance at a level similar to taxi owners'.

Currently, about half of pedicab operators are without insurance, council officials say. The bill also requires that drivers be licensed and that the vehicles undergo inspections. Another significant feature of the bill allows the police to close off a large chunk of Midtown Manhattan, where pedicabs proliferate, from Nov. 12 through Jan. 7. The police can also restrict the pedicabs from other areas, at other times of year, for up to 14 days, if there is "unusual, heavy pedestrian or vehicular traffic" or events like parades.  

Pedicab drivers say the provisions give the police a blank check to ban them from Midtown, where most of their business is. The industry also objects to the cap, which it says will remove from the streets about 175 pedicabs currently operating, and to the restriction on electric motors.

Chad Marlow, who represents the New York City Pedicab Owners Association, said the association agrees with much of the legislation, but plans to file a lawsuit challenging some elements of it. He said it believes that the council was within its rights to impose a cap as the city does with taxis, but that the restriction on electric motors and the provision giving the police the power to ban pedicabs from Midtown run afoul of the law. Four council members abstained from Wednesday's vote, raising objections to the restriction against electric motors.

At a council hearing before Wednesday's vote, Councilman Alan J. Gerson, who supported the original legislation but removed his name from the current version of the bill, said, "They're nonpolluting, they're quiet; why should the city care if they are electric assist or not?"

But CouncilmanLeroy G. Comrie Jr. of Queens, one of the bill's sponsors, said that under state law, the use of electric motors would cause the pedicabs to be classified as motorized vehicles. As such, they could not be registered because they lack the safety features required of cars and trucks.

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