Editorial
Boston Business Journal, November 17, 1997
How many times have you walked across the street in downtown Boston and nearly been run over by a speeding bicycle courier? Most people have their own horror stories.
Unfortunately for Bill Spring, his is the worst possible horror story. Spring, an admired member of the Boston School Committee and a vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, is in a coma after he was hit recently by an unlicensed bike messenger while crossing Clarendon Street at Commonwealth Avenue. He's not expected to recover.
Understandably, many in the business community are outraged and demanding new curbs on couriers. We couldn't agree with them more. The problem isn't just unlicensed messengers. The problem is the often reckless and dangerous way couriers, both licensed and unlicensed, zig-zag through city traffic and dart across streets, at sometimes incredible speeds. The messengers routinely don't follow traffic laws. They routinely assume pedestrians and automobiles should get out of their way. They go down one-way streets in the wrong direction, surprising pedestrians and automobiles alike.
A few years ago, Domino's Pizza ceased policies that had prompted its pizza delivery people to drive madly around communities in order to beat their 30-minute delivery guarantees. People were getting killed. The same is happening with bicycle couriers. We fully understand bicycle couriers serve an important economic function. Like other companies, the Boston Business Journal frequently uses such messengers. However, the means don't justify the end--and no delivery is so important that it comes before the lives and safety of citizens.
Couriers shouldn't dread having to follow basic traffic laws. Even by following traffic laws, bicycles will often remain faster modes of transportation. Bicycle couriers don't have to find parking. They don't have to wait for traffic lights, as long as they get off their bicycles and walk across streets. They can keep moving at moderate speeds as cars sit stranded in traffic snarls. New restrictions wouldn't provide safety only to motorists and pedestrians. More often than not, couriers are the ones who end up in the hospital following an accident.
It's a shame it took a tragedy to bring focus to this problem.
[New laws against couriers still won't stop Bill Spring and others from crossing against a red light into the path of a courier or other cyclist proceeding through a green light.]
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