by Rick Hampson
USA TODAY, December 16, 1997
NEW YORK
As she walks up Second Avenue, Fran is surrounded by danger: three restaurants-- Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese -- plus a pizzeria and a drug store, allof which deliver by bicycle.
This year Fran was hit by a fast-moving order of chicken teriyaki whilestanding at a crosswalk. Now she fears that another bicycle deliverer willturn her into chop suey.
In congested places like Manhattan, where bicycles provide quick deliveryof legal documents, Chinese food and other urban essentials, pedestriansare learning the hard way to look both ways. What Fran calls the ``deliverydaredevils'' have become the scourge of walkers in New York, Boston, Washington,Chicago, San Francisco and other big cities.
Although it is against the law for commercial cyclists to ride on sidewalks,through red lights or against traffic on one-way streets, many bike messengersand food deliverers do so. A few also yell, curse or spit at the pedestriansthey startle or hit in the process.
But cyclists say they're the real victims.
They complain about aggressive motorists who drive them from the street;pedestrians who, not hearing a motor, step without looking off the curb;and a system that forces them to take big risks just to make a little money.Above all, they resent those who call for their heads while calling fortheir services.
``The same people who complain about bike messengers turn around andwant their package across town in 10 minutes,'' says Shawn Blumenfeld,a courier in Washington for 11 of his 27 years.
New Yorker Alice Reponni, who was grazed by a food deliveryman's cyclelast month, admits she still calls out for restaurant delivery.
And she adds with a laugh, ``It better be hot when it gets here. Itbetter be crispy.''
Battle heats up
The clash between bikers and pedestrians has intensified recently:
- In New York, a 68-year-old man was killed last month when a Chirpin'Chicken deliveryman rode into him and knocked him to the sidewalk nearthe Museum of Natural History. The cyclist was ticketed for riding on thesidewalk but has not been charged with a crime.
Now Mayor Rudy Giuliani, known for busting squeegee men and three- cardmonte dealers and looking for new worlds to conquer after his re-electionlast month, has turned his sights on rogue cycle couriers. He calls them``a big quality-of-life problem. It may be the thing that was most mentionedto me when I was campaigning.''
Police, some on mountain bikes, have set up traps for cyclists who runred lights. They have seized bikes from those caught riding on the sidewalk.
City Council members say they'll introduce a bill to hold business ownersliable for their couriers' misdeeds.
- In Boston, a Federal Reserve Bank vice president was critically injuredwhen he was hit by a bicycle messenger on Oct. 30 while crossing the streetnear his home. The cyclist was fined $220 for driving without a commerciallicense and invading the crosswalk. But he was not charged with a crime.
The incident has tapped a vein of resentment against what Boston policespokeswoman Margot Hill calls ``a form of bicycle road rage.''
The Boston Globe demanded action to ``save Boston's streets from descendinginto anarchy.''
Chamber of Commerce members are boycotting unlicensed couriers.
And, as in New York, police are promising stricter enforcement of commercialcycling rules (bikers must wear vests with license numbers), and officialsare considering ways to make businesses who use couriers responsible forthem.
Fighting back
In New York, Fran is fighting back: She hunts scofflaws on bicycle wheels.
Fran is a middle-aged professional dog-walker who doesn't want her realname in the newspaper. ``I see these people every day,'' she says of thedelivery cyclists, ``and I don't want them to know where I live.''
Most days when she leaves her apartment, she takes along a bunch ofyellow fliers on the city's commercial bicycle law. Stealthily, she sticksthem into the baskets of delivery bikes chained to parking meters outsiderestaurants.
Sometimes, when she spots a food deliverer riding on the sidewalk, she'llpolitely ask him to get off.
Or she resorts to subterfuge: ``I'm new in the neighborhood. Can I haveone of your menus?''
Other times she'll covertly tail the cyclist to his destination, grabone of the menus he's left behind in a apartment house lobby or hallway(``I know the doormen'') and mail it to her city councilman, who has athick file on Fran.
Bicycle advocates say pedestrians such as Fran ignore their real, commonenemy: the motor vehicle. Each year in New York City, motor vehicles killabout 250 pedestrians and injure 13,000. Bicycles cause one pedestriandeath and 415 injuries every year. And not all of those involve commercialbikers.
Although they often are lumped together, bicycle messengers and fooddeliverers make different kinds of trips and pose different kinds of problems.Messengers, who deliver packages and letters in office districts, usuallydrive longer distances at higher speeds. They're trouble for jaywalkers(and sometimes for those in crosswalks) but have little use for the sidewalk.
Food deliverers, in contrast, typically cover shorter distances at slowerspeeds and might find it quicker and safer to stay on the sidewalk as theymove from restaurant to apartment house.
Food deliverers often are illegal immigrants with a weak grasp of Englishand bicycle laws. Messengers are part of a native rebel subculture thatdresses in everything from neon Spandex to hockey pads, speaks its ownslang and often discounts safety.
The couriers blame their bad image on a system that pays by the packageand according to urgency.
Usually the drive from the White House to Capitol Hill in Washington,D.C., takes Shawn Blumenfeld 15 minutes. But he can do it in as littleas four minutes if he has a rush delivery or needs to get on to the nextjob.
``The reason messengers go so fast through traffic is because we'repaid so little,'' says Blumenfeld, who is self-employed. ``Every red lightyou go through, your risk goes up. It's all about how many chances youtake.
``If you don't ride unsafely, you're not going to get paid enough.''
Most couriers make between $3 and $6 a delivery, which adds up to about$300 to $700 a week. Most get no health insurance, workers' compensation,liability insurance, vacation or sick time.
``We're not the problem,'' Blumenfeld says. ``It's the boss who says,`If you don't go 30 miles an hour through traffic, you don't get paid.'''
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