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 hit by bicycle couriers. The man in New York died from the collision.

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

From member station WBUR, Laura Rozen reports.

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

SOUNDBITE OF DISPATCHER SPEAKING IN BACKGROUND There are some 500 licensed bike couriers in the Boston area and about twice that number in Manhattan. And increasingly in New York, restaurants are relying on bike messengers to 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 on the sidewalk.

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

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

ROZEN: The collision that left a Boston executive hospitalized for the past month has made many of his colleagues think twice about the messenger services 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 the newspaper 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 time is critical, she's not thinking about caution.

MANISHA OREE, ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR, MCDERMOTT O'NEAL PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRM: I mean, I rely on the bike couriers at 4:30 or 5, you know, when we'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, many documents are still delivered by hand -- airline tickets, architectural drawings, 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 taboo to side with couriers if you're a pedestrian or a business person of any kind. But at the same time, people secretly need us. Cars can't get anywhere in any amount of time, and they can't park, and there's too many one-way streets and zig-zags.

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

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

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

ROZEN: In response to the recent collision, Boston police are working on new 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 life in 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 riding on the sidewalks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adding more bike lanes. Keeping cars out of bike lanes. Providing more bicycle racks in downtown areas. And allowing bicycles onto subways and buses.

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

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