Bringing Us Our Daily Bread

People curse and depend on them.  I'm talking about those food delivery workers on e-bikes who weave, at breakneck speeds, through traffic and buzz pedestrians and cyclists.  People complain when they're nearly struck, or simply scared, by those couriers whom they expect to bring pizza, tacos, General Tso's chicken, sushi or pad thai to their doors within 15 minutes after placing their orders.  And, since most of those delivery workers are paid by the number of deliveries they make, and depend on tips, they will continue to rush within a hair's breath of anyone who's walking or pedaling in "their" bike lane.  As much as that annoys, exasperates and freaks me out, I try not to be too angry with them:  After all, many of them are supporting families here and in their native countries (nearly all are immigrants, many of them undocumented) and have limited job opportunities because they speak English poorly or not at all and may have educational or professional credentials that aren't recognized here.

Still, as much as I respect their work ethic,  I have to admit that no delivery worker I've seen has anything on this one in Cairo, Egypt:

#video
bread delivery in Cairo 🥖
🚲#ifb #SaturdayKitchen #Food #bicycle pic.twitter.com/dxqQBUr64R

— You Must Do✍️SURVEYS (@youmustdo1) August 14, 2021

E-Bikes: An Immigrants'-Rights Issue?

The other day, I admitted that I have aimed an impolite hand gesture at inconsiderate motorists.  I have also used more than a few words, in a few languages (hey, I'm in New York) that aren't fit for a family blog.

(Is this a family blog?)

I have also made those same gestures and hurled those same verbal missiles at e-bike riders who have come out of nowhere and cut across intersections, or in front of me.  Afterward, I feel a little guilty:  After all, I was once a bike messenger and understand how difficult it is to make a living from making deliveries.  I'll bet that some of them, after a day of delivering pepperoni pizzas or Korean tacos, may not have a meal to bring home to their families--or for themselves.

Even though I sometimes wish that all of those e-bikes would turn into real, I mean pedal, bikes, I realize that some of those delivery guys (nearly all of them are male) have to continue in the same line of work even as their bodies are giving out on them.  I also know that nearly all of them are immigrants, some of whom can speak English very little if at all, and may not have many (if any) other marketable skills.

If those guys stopped making deliveries, the city would come to a standstill.  All right, perhaps I'm exaggerating just a bit.  I have to wonder, though, what some folks would do if they couldn't have their diner dishes or trattoria treats delivered to them after a long day at work--or if said meals were to double in price.

So if the problem is not that those workers use e-bikes, what is it?  

Well, not all e-bikes are created equal.  Here in New York, there are basically three classes.  Class 1 e-bikes are the pedal-assisted variety and attain top speeds of 20MPH.  Recently, Mayor de Blasio declared them perfectly legal in this city.  Class 2 and 3 bikes are throttle-operated and not legal in the Big Apple.

You might have guessed where the rub is:  Most deliveries are done on Class 2 and 3 bikes because, well, they're faster and don't require pedaling.  The fine for operating such machines is $500 per day--more than most delivery workers make in a week.  Worse, the police can and do confiscate these bikes, which leaves workers unable to provide for their families--and lots of yuppies and hipsters hungry.

Transportation Alternatives is therefore circulating a petition calling for, among other things, guidelines and requirements--as well as a program that provides financial and practical assistance--for converting Class 2 and 3 bikes to Class 1.  In addition, the petition calls for a moratorium on e-bike enforcement until the regulatory framework has been fully implemented, and the workers, NYPD and public are educated about the changes.

So, while I hope that I won't stop pedaling until someone can stick a fork in me, I don't want to deprive immigrants of income for themselves and their families.  After all, who else will my General Tso's Chicken while I'm binge-watching The Golden Girls?

Sign Of The Times

Today I walked by my "go-to" takeout (and, sometimes, eat-in) Chinese restaurant.  Fatima hasn't changed much, at least in food (fortunately), decor (such as it is) or personnel (again, fortunately) since I first started patronizing it.  The changes, it seems, are taking place on the outside.

No, they haven't changed their sign, either.  Rather, I am talking about this:

Now, if you live in any large (or, possibly, not-so-large) city, you wouldn't think this scene is remarkable:  Three electric bikes (or scooters) parked outside a Chinese restaurant.  It's no more unusual than what I saw at the Chinese restaurant across the street, which I go to when Fatima is closed:

These days, electric bikes and scooters are found by most restaurants that offer take-out or delivery service.  The most notable exceptions seem to be pizzerias because it's difficult to those wide pizza boxes on an "e-bike".  Also, traditional delivery bikes, like the ones made by Worksman, usually have front carrying boxes big enough for pizzas--and wide baskets or Porteur-style racks can be fitted to other kinds of bicycles. It seems that similar boxes, baskets and racks can't be fitted on, or simply not available for two-wheeled vehicles with electric motors.

Compare the first two photos I posted to a couple from the early days of this blog:

Four years ago, most restaurants--like the Bel Aire Diner, where I took the above images--had ragtag fleets of the sorts of bikes one could lock up without fear:  everything from old three-speeds, bike-boom era ten- and twelve-speeds and mountain bikes from the '80's and '90's.  

Of the bikes parked in front of restaurants, typically, at least one was a "donor" bike, cannibalized for parts that might or not fit on the "receptor" bikes.  But somehow those delivery men (Yes, almost all of them are male), who probably knew no more about bike mechanics than I did the day before I opened the pages of Anybody's Bike Book, would find a way to make the brakes from an old Peugeot ten-speed or Raleigh three-speed "work" on a mountain bike--or fit mountain bike wheels and tires on those old Raleighs and Peugeots.

Some might scoff or gasp in horror at such "Frankenbikes".  But they at least showed attempts--some successful, or at least admirable--of solving problems with the materials at hand and the limited knowledge most of those delivery men had.

I sometimes see e-bikes similarly cannibalized for other e-bikes.  I'll admit I know almost nothing about e-bikes, but I still believe it's safe to assume there isn't nearly as much variation in e-bikes as there is in pedal-powered bikes.  If there isn't, I wonder what "Franken e-bikes" (Doesn't have quite the same ring as "Frankenbikes", does it?) will look like.

Probably the most interesting and disturbing thing about this phenomenon of electric two-wheelers is that they constitute, at least in this city, a kind of modern-day Prohibition.  No, their riders aren't bringing bootleg gin to clubs (though I wouldn't doubt they're toting other kinds of contraband). Rather, the explosion in the number of such bikes--and the shops that service and sell them--continues even though e-bikes are still illegal here in New York City.  

That, ironically, might be a reason why couriers in Manhattan still ride bicycles, most often the fixed-gear variety.  Messengers have, shall we say, a bit of a PR problem and the police target them.  Even though some messengers take pride in their "outlaw" attitude, they don't want something that subjects them to more scrutiny than they already get.

Also, e-bikes aren't as maneuverable in city traffic, or as easy to park along city streets, as regular bicycles.  Thus, whatever advantage in speed e-bikes and scooters might have is negated, especially in heavily congested areas like the Financial District of Manhattan.  

It will be interesting, to say the least, to see whether a proposal to allow electric bikes for businesses will ever pass in the City Council. (It's been introduced several times.)  I suspect that the Council's vote will not have any influence on whether large numbers of bike messengers abandon their "fixies" for e-bikes.

Not Plugged Into Courtesy And Safety

I'm no fan of electric bikes, or e-bikes, as they're commonly known.  Actually, what bothers me even more than the bikes themselves are their riders.  Here in New York, it seems that just about all of them are delivery men (I haven't seen a woman doing that kind of work) for restaurants and stores.  

Now, as a long-ago bicycle messenger, I can understand some of the challenges of their job.  I'm guessing that most of them are paid per delivery, as I was when I sluiced asphalt slaloms through canyons of glass and steel to bring everything from legal documents to slices of pizza to packages with their own "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies, if you know what I mean.  In those days, I was young (Weren't we all, once?) and in good shape, which made me a fast rider. That, of course, is why I made decent money--better money, in fact, than I did in the next two jobs I had after I stopped plying the courier trade.

Speed equals money.  That, of course, is the reason why those delivery people ride electric or motorized bikes.   I get that.  But I don't condone their disregard for the basic rules of the road and their lack of consideration for other people.  

 

Last night, while riding to my bank's ATM and a store, I was nearly half of a head-on collision with some guy making deliveries on an e-bike.  I was riding between the traffic and parking lanes, both of which were full on a stretch lined with restaurants, bars, clubs and stores that remained open for the holiday.   

He was riding in the opposite direction, at least twice as fast as I was moving into the wind.  From what I could tell, he was not paying attention to the traffic or anything else. For that matter, I don't think he spoke English--or, at least not enough to understand "Watch out!" and the curses I yelled at him after he missed me by the breadth of the string in his hoodie.

It's not the first, or even the worst, instance of such careless riding I've seen by e-bikers.  I have stopped patronizing a restaurant near me because the owner refuses to talk to his delivery men--especially one in particular who routinely rides on sidewalks and, in one incident I saw, nearly killed an elderly woman who was walking by.  

Anyway...I know that a new year has begun, and this is supposed to be a time of good cheer.  But one thing I would love to see in this new year are the two "c's"--consciousness and courtesy--on the part of pedestrians, motorists and cyclists, e-bikers and motorized bicycle riders alike.