BOSTON COURIERS

Morning Edition, National Public Radio, December 1997

BOB EDWARDS, HOST: This is MORNING EDITION. I'm Bob Edwards.

In the past month, two men -- one in Boston, one in New York -- were hitby bicycle couriers. The man in New York died from the collision.

Both cities are cracking down on the courier companies. But many saythe problem is not the cyclists, but the cities, which need to come upwith better ways to accommodate couriers.

From member station WBUR, Laura Rozen reports.

LAURA ROZEN, WBUR REPORTER: Rush hour, and the calls are streaming in asfast as this downtown Boston bicycle courier company can dispatch them.

SOUNDBITE OF DISPATCHER SPEAKING IN BACKGROUND There are some 500 licensedbike couriers in the Boston area and about twice that number in Manhattan.And increasingly in New York, restaurants are relying on bike messengersto deliver food orders.

And in fact, it was the bike delivery messenger for the Chirpin' Chicken(ph) restaurant in New York who struck and killed a man while riding onthe sidewalk.

RECEPTIONIST: Good afternoon. McDermott O'Neal (ph).

[Since the reporter found it necessary to detail the cause of theNYC accident she must have forgot(?) to do the same in Boston - the pedestrianhad the red light and the courier had the green light when the accidentocurred]

ROZEN: The collision that left a Boston executive hospitalized for thepast month has made many of his colleagues think twice about the messengerservices they use.

Tom O'Neal (ph) heads a downtown Boston public relations firm.

TOM O'NEAL, HEAD OF BOSTON PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRM: If you read it in thenewspaper first blush without ever having one of these incidents, you say,huh, kind of an overreaction. But it's not.

Because everybody you talk to knows somebody who has been hit, run over,opened a car door and got banged into, or something.

ROZEN: But O'Neal acknowledges that his business is one of the culprits.According to his administrative coordinator Manisha Oree (ph), when timeis critical, she's not thinking about caution.

MANISHA OREE, ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR, MCDERMOTT O'NEAL PUBLIC RELATIONSFIRM: I mean, I rely on the bike couriers at 4:30 or 5, you know, whenwe're meeting deadline and clients, you know, need the material by 6:00.They get, they get the job done, and that's what matters in the end.

ROZEN: Despite an age dominated by fax machines and electronic mail, manydocuments are still delivered by hand -- airline tickets, architecturaldrawings, and legal documents top the list.

Owen Carlson (ph) runs a bike messenger business in Boston.

OWEN CARLSON, HEAD OF BOSTON BIKE MESSENGER BUSINESS: It's almost tabooto side with couriers if you're a pedestrian or a business person of anykind. But at the same time, people secretly need us. Cars can't get anywherein any amount of time, and they can't park, and there's too many one-waystreets and zig-zags.

And bikes are the only things that can handle some of the needs that especiallylaw firms have. Law firms will call constantly at 4:30 looking to get stuffacross town by 4:45. And quite often their entire case will rest on thatone delivery.

SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC ROZEN: Many couriers are careful. But one Boston courierconcedes that some of them are reckless. One biker, Adam, declines to givehis last name.

ADAM, BOSTON BICYCLE COURIER: There's that underworld glamour that attractsthe younger kids that come in, and they think they can just come out hereand ride around like it's a game.

ROZEN: In response to the recent collision, Boston police are working onnew rules to govern bike couriers here.

New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has called the bikers virtual outlaws,and complains they are one of the biggest threats to the quality of lifein the city.

Since last week's collision, New York police have been out in force,writing citations for everything from not having a working bell to ridingon the sidewalks.

But it's the restaurants and companies that employ bike messengers thatneed to be held accountable, says New York City Councilman Andrew Aristoff(ph).

ANDREW ARISTOFF, NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMAN: Instead of simply having thebicyclist liable for a violation, I want the business, which after allsponsors and is responsible for these bicyclists, to also be liable forviolations of the law.

ROZEN: But bicycle advocates say the real solution is to make cities moreaccommodating to cyclists.

John Orchid (ph) works for the Tristate Transportation Campaign, a bicycleadvocacy group with more than 4,000 members in New York, New Jersey, andConnecticut.

JOHN ORCHID, TRISTATE TRANSPORTATION CAMPAIGN: If you want bikes off thesidewalks and you want bikes to try to comply with the law and the trafficsystem that's in place, you have to make that system work for bicyclistsas well as for everybody else.

ROZEN: Bicycle advocacy groups in Boston, New York and San Francisco sayfairly simple policy changes can make a big difference.

Adding more bike lanes. Keeping cars out of bike lanes. Providing morebicycle racks in downtown areas. And allowing bicycles onto subways andbuses.

For NPR News, I'm Laura Rozen in Boston.

If you have comments or suggestions, email me at messvilleto@yahoo.com