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Future of Pedicabs Remains Uncertain


Are bicycle-powered pedicabs just a diversion for tourists or are they a legitimate form of mass transit? Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto of a bill to regulate the city's pedicabs has kept alive debate about the role of the fledging bicycle taxi industry in the city.

A LEGISLATIVE COMPROMISE

The New York City Council recently passed a bill that represented a compromise between pedicab owners and powerful opponents of the industry, primarily taxi, hotel and restaurant owners.

The bill would establish a cap of 325 pedicabs in the city and require the cabs have $2 million in liability insurance, that drivers be licensed and that vehicles undergo inspection. The legislation would also ban the use of electric motors to help with pedaling and authorize the police department to restrict pedicabs from Midtown during the holiday season and from any Midtown street for up to 14 days at other times.

Pedicab owners supported insurance and other safety regulations to maintain standards and prevent pedicab owners who are not paying insurance from charging lower rates to the detriment of those owners who are insured. The owners, however, opposed the cap on the number of pedicabs, as well as the bans on operation during the holiday season and the use of electric assists.

THE MAYOR'S SURPISE VETO

Ironically, it was not pedicab owners but their drivers who prompted the mayor to veto the bill.

Drivers testified at what was expected to be a routine bill-signing ceremony that they feared losing their jobs – seemingly with good reason since the current number of pedicabs, estimated at up to 500, probably exceeds the new cap. After hearing from drivers, Bloomberg surprised everyone by declining to sign the bill and on March 31 announced his veto. During his weekly radio show, the mayor commented, "Let the free marketplace decide." He suggested that a cap of 500 would satisfy him.

It is not clear whether the City Council, which adopted the bill with than the two-thirds majority needed to override a mayoral veto, will vote to do so.

The New York Sun reported that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn will force through an override, while the Village Voice quotes the bill's sponsor, Councilmember Leroy Comrie, as saying the bill's fate is undecided. An override vote - if there is one - is expected to take place at the council meeting scheduled for April 23.

If the council overrides the mayor's veto, the bill would formalize the city's acceptance of the pedicab industry as part of the Midtown landscape while limiting the vehicles’ numbers and potentially restricting their operation during the most congested -- and most lucrative -- times of the year.

PEDICABS VS. TAXIS

The council’s regulatory scheme for pedicabs is similar in some ways to the long-established taxicab medallion system. The number of medallion cabs is limited by law to about 13,000 vehicles and the industry is subject to an extensive set of requirements for insurance and driver licensing.

Yet the medallion cabs are never banned from Midtown -- in fact, they are allowed special access to some bus lanes and provided with taxi stands at key locations.

Insurance requirements are actually lower for medallion cabs than for pedicabs under the bill, an ironic contrast given that cabs can travel at much higher speeds and are thus more likely to be involved in accidents causing severe injury.

Proponents of the bill say that the cap, insurance requirements and licensing regulations are important to prevent pedicabs from further clogging traffic, to protect against unfair competition with taxicabs for street hails, and to protect pedestrian safety. This view essentially sees pedicabs as an entertainment option for tourists. It thus makes sense to limit their number and operations to prevent the pedicabs from interfering with other users of Manhattan streets.

ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION

Pedicab proponents paint them as a fast, safe and environmentally and passenger-friendly means of transportation.

Gregg Zukowski, a pedicab owner and driver, wrote in Gotham Gazette last year that because of its ability to weave through traffic, a pedicab can zip from Grand Central to Penn Station in eight minutes, while a taxicab could take 20 or 30 minutes. Pedicab drivers say that many of their riders are New Yorkers who value the faster ride or who cannot find a medallion taxi.

With the exception of one accident in which a private bus struck a pedicab in 2001, there have apparently been no major accidents involving pedicabs since their advent in New York City a decade ago. With pedal power, pedicabs do not contribute to either smog or global warming.

Leaders of several city transportation and environmental groups emphasized the environmental implications of the issue in a letter urging council members not to override the mayor’s veto. “If you are truly committed to protecting our environment and heading off environmental catastrophes such as those highlighted in the Academy Award winning film An Inconvenient Truth, you simply cannot vote in favor of legislation that is specifically designed to undermine evolving green industries,” the letter said.

Perhaps the greatest appeal of pedicabs is their passenger-friendly image, created by drivers who engage in conversation and will point out the sights along the way to tourists.

Pedicab owners implicitly point to a future Manhattan streetscape with fewer cars and cabs and more eco-friendly modes of transportation. Pedicabs would be part of this, joined by pedestrians, bicycles and clean-air buses, all of which use less street space per passenger mile traveled than cars or conventional cabs. There might be additions to this new transportation list; Vespa, the manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, recently released a study that concluded that substituting motor scooters for cars would reduce global warming vehicle emissions in the city.

The council's bill does allow for changes in the future. The cap on the number of pedicabs would expire two years after the bill becomes law, unless the council renews it. Thus, neither this bill (nor a replacement that simply increased the numerical cap) really resolves the place of pedicabs in the city. The bill does take important steps toward making sure pedicabs are safe. But it does not settle the thornier issues about who should be using the city's congested streets and for what purposes.

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. 

Finding A Parking Space


Traffic congestion has been the focus of much recent discussion, but parking actually gets more complaints, according to a Tri-State Transportation Campaign public opinion survey , which last year found that more New York City residents consider parking to be a problem in their neighborhood than traffic. This was true even though only about one-half the survey respondents own a car. Finding a parking space is so difficult that some motorists have arrangements to sell their parking space to their neighbor or corner merchant when they leave their space in the morning.

Parking issues and possible solutions were highlighted during the first week of March by the visit to New York of UCLA professor Donald Shoup, author of “The High Cost of Free Parking.” In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Shoup was hailed as a “parking rock star" by Paul White of Transportation Alternatives, the host for his visit, not the usual description for a 68-year-old professor of urban planning.

Shoup proposes that cities raise curbside parking fees on commercial strips to achieve an equilibrium between parking supply and demand, in the same way that private garages raise rates for off-street parking if they find their garages are consistently filled. Shoup says that metered fees should be set at the “lowest price necessary” to maintain a 15 percent vacancy rate at curb spaces, a rate at which there is likely to be an open space on every block at all times. The rate might vary by time of day and would certainly vary by location. Areas with high demand for parking would have the highest meter rates. Tony neighborhoods in London, which follow this approach, charge $8 an hour for parking.

Benefits Of Increased Parking Fees

What are the benefits of this proposal? Shoup emphasizes that the incremental fee revenue generated by increased parking fees should be dedicated to fixing sidewalks, steam cleaning them every other month, planting trees, installing street furniture and otherwise enhancing the streetscape. These improvements might be managed by local business improvement districts (BIDs), thus creating a powerful constituency to ensure that the parking fees are collected and the revenue spent as intended. Shoup points to Old Pasadena, California, as an example of the success of this approach. This once-derelict downtown adopted market rate pricing for its parking and is now a thriving retail district that draws visitors from throughout Southern California.

Market rate pricing for curb parking would also reduce traffic. Shoup points out that a lot of traffic is generated not by motorists going to their destination but by motorists who have arrived at their destination and are searching for a parking spot. Various surveys in New York have shown that between 15 percent and 45 percent of traffic on the city’s streets consists of cars searching for a parking space. Freeing up spaces would greatly reduce the mileage spent cruising for parking, as well as reduce double-parking by motorists who cannot find a space, and thus reduce traffic and air pollution throughout the city.

Shoup suggests that the city could use technology to help make the program work effectively. Parking meters can be networked so that city officials know which spaces are currently being paid for. Devices implanted in the pavement can detect when a vehicle is occupying the space, so that parking enforcement can be directed to areas with high violation rates. These devices can also be used to track occupancy rates so that city officials know when to adjust parking fees to maintain a 15 percent vacancy rate. Devices that motorists hang inside their car windows can be used to pay for parking, doing away with the need to stock up on quarters and enabling drivers to pay only for the time they are actually parked.

Objections to Higher Curbside Parking Fees

Shoup’s ideas expand to auto parking the principles the city has already applied to commercial parking in Midtown Manhattan. The city’s commercial parking program charges delivery vehicles escalating curbside fees for spaces that were formerly free. The program has won the support of delivery companies by making it easier for delivery drivers to find a space and by greatly reducing double-parking.

Yet despite the success of this approach for commercial parking, the idea of higher fees for cars to park on commercial strips meets with resistance by some residents and merchants. People do not exactly welcome having to pay more for something that was once free or very cheap. They are particularly concerned about the impact of higher fees on lower-income drivers and on local merchants.

Another objection involves parking fine revenue. If there were less double-parking or less illegal parking, would not this cost the city government a considerable portion of the $550 million in parking fine revenue it takes in every year?

A third objection focuses on the spillover effects of higher parking fees. Won’t drivers simply divert to side streets where parking is only subject to alternate side regulation, thus transplanting but not reducing the cruising mileage? Or won’t the availability of metered spaces attract more people to drive and park, thus offsetting the reduction in cruising?

Answering The Objections

There are counterarguments to these objections. For example, government survey data show that only two percent of shopping trips by lower-income people involve driving to the store and parking at a metered space. Shoppers are far more likely to walk or use the bus or subway than to drive; those who do drive primarily park in free off-street lots. Thus, far more lower-income shoppers would benefit through streetscape improvements than would be affected by higher parking fees.

The concern about fine revenue seems premature. This program would have to be very widely and very successfully implemented before there is any chance that parking reform turns parking enforcement personnel into the mythical Maytag repairman with nothing to do.

Since parking fees will promote turnover and thus increase the effective capacity of metered spaces, and ensure that a metered space is virtually always available, it seems far more likely to reduce cruising than increase it.

More broadly, maybe the real “problem” with Shoup’s ideas is that they seem too good to be true. Shoup claims that market rate pricing of metered spaces will be good for everyone – motorists who can depend on finding a spot, merchants who will have a higher flow of customers because parking spaces turnover more quickly, bus riders and other drivers because there will be less traffic and less double parking, and everyone who walks the sidewalks because revenues will be applied to streetscape improvements.

But -- there is no such thing as a free lunch, right? Let’s find the fatal flaw: it’s inequitable, it’ll clog traffic on the side streets, the city’s treasury will suffer, the plan will attract more drivers.

New Yorkers’ sharp-witted instincts might be applied more usefully to the dysfunctional operation of the street space that we live with every day. Who in their right mind would design a system that guarantees that a substantial portion of traffic is simply from motorists driving in circles? Why give a break to people who want to park all day instead of opening up spaces to a stream of people with shopping or other errands? Why should city officials collect five times more revenue from parking violations than from parking fees? Why does it make sense for landlords to charge market rate rents on one side of the sidewalk but for the city to vastly under-price the real estate it owns on the other side? Since motorists are almost entirely from the upper ends of the income scale, why is equity trumped as an objection to market rate curb pricing?

Shoup believes that none of this makes any sense. He thinks that once people think through the issue, they will see the merits of applying market principles that are so familiar for most goods and services to the problem of finding a parking space in New York

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. 

Nightlife, Pedicabs, and the N-word


Angry pedicab drivers booed and hissed from the balcony at the city council's biweekly stated meeting on February 28th. What was being voted on was important to them. Other actions were important to nightclubs, and to tax preparers and their clients, and to those who care about civil rights. Indeed, in the end, the council passed eight new bills and two resolutions, including one that Councilmember Lew Fidler described as the most important resolution he had ever voted on, and Councilmember Albert Van described as "the beginning of a movement."

PEDICAB REGULATIONS

Over the last four years, the number of pedicabs on the street has more than tripled, to about 350 on any given night, according to the New York Pedicab Drivers Association. These oversized tricycles carry a driver in front and up to three passengers, and are most common in Midtown, the Village, and areas between. Increasingly, tourists and residents alike are seeing the vehicles as a novel and speedy way to get around - Councilmember Rosie Mendez says she regularly rides one because a knee problem makes it uncomfortable to walk. But others complain that pedicabs add to traffic congestion, and need to be regulated because of safety concerns.

"Every other vehicle that transports people for hire on the streets of New York -- cabs, black cars, carriage horse drivers -- all of those vehicles and their drivers operate in a regulatory structure," said Council Speaker Christine Quinn. "The pedicab drivers have no structure at all."

With the mayor's blessing, the council passed a bill ( Intro 331-A) that would regulate this industry for the first time. This bill would cap the number of pedicabs allowed to operate in the city at 325, and make drivers disclose the methods by which they determine fares. Drivers would be required to obtain licenses and purchase insurance. The pedicabs themselves would have to meet certain safety standards such as having lights, seatbelts, and brakes that met certain requirements. The bill would also ban the use of motors on pedicabs, such as the small "electric assist" motors that some drivers now use to get an additional push.

Pedicab drivers themselves have said they want some rules governing their industry because its recent growth requires quality control. But drivers attending the stated meeting did not like the regulations they got. A loud group voiced their discontent on the steps of City Hall before the meeting, then moved to the balcony of the chamber, where they cheered for council members who agreed with them and booed and hissed at those who didn't.

The critics took issue with the idea capping the number of pedicabs in the city. The drivers present estimate their numbers at about 500 citywide, meaning that many would lose their right to operate under the new regulations. A cap would unnecessarily distort the market, they said. Some also argued that the city is asking for pedicab drivers to spend an unreasonably large amount on insurance. That, coupled with the cost of the other improvements, will make their businesses unprofitable, argued Mega Martinez, a pedicab driver in attendance.

Several council members had harsh words for the bill, echoing the criticisms made by the drivers.

"This is supposed to be a capitalist society --- even though I am a socialist -- and there is supposed to be free enterprise and competition," said Charles Barron, to the delight of the crowd in the balcony. "The taxi and limousine businesses want to put the pedicabs out of business."

Supporters of the bill responded by noting that the cap will be reconsidered in 18 months. The council will have to renew the bill six months after that.

"Is 325 the right cap? I have no idea," said Councilmember Oliver Koppell, who voted for the legislation. He said the cap would actually help the complaining pedicab drivers by cutting down on their competition, allowing them to increase their income and offset the increased costs associated with regulation.

The bill passed by a vote of 38 to 7. Council members Tony Avella, Charles Barron, Letitia James, Rosie Mendez, Hiram Monserrate, Annabel Palma, and Albert Vann voted against it. Four more council members abstained - Gale Brewer, Alan Gerson, Diane Mealy, and James Sanders.

NIGHTLIFE BILLS

The council also passed three laws and a resolution related to nightlife safety, a focus of the council since Imette St. Guillen was abducted and murdered while she was having a night on the town about a year ago.

Intro 442-a- would require clubs with cabaret licenses to install security cameras at all entrances and exits. Speaker Quinn said this was intended to serve as a deterrent and also would provide evidence in the case of a crime. Several council members expressed their concern over privacy issues, particularly for gay and lesbian patrons who may be especially wary of being captured on film at certain establishments. Still, the bill passed unanimously.

Intro 440-a require establishments with multiple or serious violations to hire safety monitors instead of being shut down. These monitors would cooperate with police to try to improve the clubs' behavior. Critics of this bill worried that it would be used to harass legitimate social clubs in minority neighborhoods. The bill passed by a vote of 46 to 3, with council members Charles Barron, Letitia James, and Diane Mealy voting no.

Intro 484-a would give the city the power to shut down stores that sell fake IDs under the city's nuisance abatement law. Another bill, Intro 515-a, would have also used the noise abatement law to close down bars or clubs where multiple violent crimes have taken place, but the council couldn't reach an agreement on the shape of the bill, and the vote was delayed.

Finally, Councilmember Melinda Katz sponsored a resolution calling on the state to address clubs that require patrons to buy entire bottles in order to enter. So-called bottle service, Katz argues, means leaving an unattended bottle of alcohol at a table, making it easier for underage patrons to drink and encouraging customers to drink excessively. She introduced a resolution that would have asked the state to ban bottle service altogether, but it never made it to a full council vote. Instead, the council passed a resolution on February 28 asking the state to require a waiter to oversee bottle service, rather than just plunking the bottle on the table.

"Clearly we don't have the power to pass these things in the city council, so we need the state legislature to step up," said Katz. The resolution passed unanimously.

Speaker Quinn stressed that these laws will be followed by additional measures concerning nightlife. Members of the council said they would continue to push for tougher restrictions on fake IDs, and would consider the industry's request that City Hall establish a mayor's office of nightlife, based on the office of film and broadcasting.

Another measure mentioned was paid detail -- when off-duty police officers are posted outside clubs at the owners' expense, armed and in uniform. Industry representatives are in favor of such a plan, saying it will improve security. The police department, however, is resisting, arguing that it may create a conflict of interest for the officers involved.

THE "N-WORD"

On the last day of Black History Month, the council unanimously passed a symbolic moratorium on the "n-word."

The effort was spearheaded by Councilmember Leroy Comrie, who was distressed at the casual use of the word by teenagers in his Queens district as they gathered after school. He hooked into a movement to ban the slur that his staff found on the Internet. Over the last month, Comrie has written letters to the Grammies and BET asking them not to feature hip hop artists who use the word (he has not heard back). Over 30 middle schools in the city participated in an essay contest where students described what the word meant to them; the 17 winners were given free tickets to the Universal Soul Circus.

Comrie's original intent was simply to introduce the legislation as a way to spark discussion at a time that people are talking about black history. The council has been mocked for its resolutions in the past, and council members now say they are reticent to pass what are essentially statements of official opinion. But the momentum that has built up around Comrie's campaign warranted an exception, said numerous council members. Councilmember John Liu called the slur "the vilest word in the English language," and Councilmember Lew Fidler said the resolution was the most important one the council has considered in his five-year tenure.

Comrie takes pains to note the symbolic nature of the resolution. Some others have called for the word to be removed from the dictionary, but he believes it should stay there for historical purposes.

"I'm not interested in creating an opportunity to eliminate words," he said. "That's a slippery slope to go down."

WETLANDS, TAX SCHEMERS, AND $1.9 BILLION

Several other pieces of legislation also passed the council by unanimous votes.

Intro 505 extends the life of the city's Wetlands Task Force, which is examining the feasibility of transferring city-owned wetlands to the Parks Department for preservation.

The Tax Preparation Consumer Bill of Rights (Intro 81-a) would require tax preparers to give their customers information on fees, interest rates, and other "unfavorable charges." Last year, Earned Income Tax Credit recipients - workers whose income is so low that they qualify for tax relief - spent $325 million last year for tax preparation, according to Councilmember Eric Gioia, the bill's primary sponsor.

The council also passed a resolution (Resolution 729) known as a budget modification, which officially acknowledges that the city has $1.9 billion in unexpected tax revenue this year. Speaker Quinn said that City Hall would use the money to prepay expenses in fiscal 2008, which starts July 1. But she also called for the state to change the law that prohibits city officials from putting money away for lean years in the future.

"We would be in a more thoughtful place right now in city government if we could make a decision whether to prepay expenses or to take those funds and put them aside in a long term rainy day account," she said.

Other members said that the extra surplus indicated that it was time to re-examine the city's tax code. A recent report by the Independent Budget Office showed that New Yorkers carry a much heavier tax burden than residents of any other large city in the country. Councilmember Fidler called for a further reworking of the city's property tax system. Republican Minority Leader James Oddo said officials should look at income taxes, the major reason for the disparity.

"Let's bring in experts" to examine the fiscal implications of a cut, said Oddo. "They can pooh-pooh it, they can praise it, they can say it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I think it's incumbent on us to analyze it."

 



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