Boston Globe, June 20 ,1998
After a quarrel over initial amendments made to a home rule petition to regulate bicycle messengers, City Councilor at Large Stephen J. Murphy said yesterday that he and police have agreed on a way to close two major loopholes in the legislation.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino is reviewing the home rule petition and, if he does not sign it on Monday, it will die.
The ordinance, which would require messengers to obtain insurance and a license through the police department, came under scrutiny by officers when the City Council's committee on public safety removed two requirements from the legislation: that couriers get a new license when they change employers, and that messengers wear identifying armbands.
Murphy said he reached an understanding with Police Commissioner Paul F. Evans's office that he would file an amendment on Wednesday that would effectively close the loopholes. He said he expects the bill to have already been signed by that time.
According to police Deputy Superintendent John Ferguson, who heads the committee that drafted the ordinance, the existing changes would allow couriers to leave a company through which they are insured and go to another where they may not be insured while still retaining their license.
The insurance requirement was removed after messengers said that the $25 charge associated with the reapplication process would be too costly for messengers, who may change companies four or five times a year.
Murphy's amendment will lower that charge to $5.
''We want them to have to come in to make sure that they are insured,'' Ferguson said. ''They have to show proof of insurance.''
Removing the armband requirement would allow couriers to operate without having their license on their person. As originally drafted, the measure would have required couriers to carry their licenses in their armbands.
The council removed the armband requirement after bicycle messengers said they were being forced to identify themselves, Murphy said.
The home rule petition was filed after Federal Reserve Bank vice president
and School Committee member William J. Spring was severly injured after
he was run down by an unlicensed messenger in the Back Bay last October.
Spring has said he will return to work in the fall.
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