War Of Wheels Boiling Over As Bike Couriers Vie With Cars
By Joseph Hall, TORONTO STAR, July 15, 1990
Okay, so they dress really weird.
And they may sometimes completely ignore the rules of the road.
There also may well be something slightly irksome about the way they dart, wasp-like, through clogged traffic, flaunting their free wheels while yours are stuck fast in a seemingly endless downtown jam.
But what they can't understand is why so many people seem to dislike them.
In a city where the increasing in ability to move on the roads is at constant loggerheads with the increasing demand to have things moved, the verdict on bicycle couriers probably-lies somewhere between scourge and salvation And in the case of the Spandexed kamikazes, between is a pretty big space.
They swarm at an unnoteworthy brick building on Charlotte St. a slip of a road between King and Adelaide St.., just east of Spadina Ave.
Inside the offices of Sunwheel Bicycle Couriers, the city’s largest bike courier company, about 20 sweaty men and women gather after a long day of perpetual motion.
'There is no question that; of people think we are at fault for a lot of the traffic problems we have, says Terry Cantwell, a 28 year-old courier who, in the lingo of the trade, has spent three winters on the road.
"But when's the last time you heard of a family of five being killed by a cyclist. We don't do nearly as much damage as cars."
Cars are the keynote of the chant raised by Cantwell and his colleagues anytime they're challenged with allegations of roadway recklessness.
"Taxi drivers, people in cars, they disregard the rules far more than people on bikes,"he says. "When you see a taxi up ahead, he might as well have a sign on the car saying 'Watch out, I'm going to do something stupid'."To drive the point home there’s a photocopied clipping tacked to the room's dull gray wall about a freak traffic accident in Cambridge, Ont., in which a bicycle demolished a car.
Below it some wag has written: Cars 999,999,999 - Bikes l.
"You see we're an identifiable group and if a cyclist breaks the law, we all get the rap," says Tom Nicholson, a five-year veteran of the road.
"And people in cars, not only don't respect us, they don't even think we have a right to be there. Everyone in this room has been in a collision with someone who's done something stupid in a car."
There's a grudging admission by those gathered around the room's large wooden tables that some couriers habitually break the law to deliver their goods and services.
"But they are usually the inexperienced ones"says Kelly Dealhoy. a Queen's University biochemistry major pedalling her summers toward a degree."The good ones get there fast by learning the city and the legal shortcuts. The good ones aren't up on the side-walks or running stop signs.
But for Metro Councillor Howard Moscoe, who is heading an effort to get bicycle couriers licensed , it’s the nature of the business to be reckless.
"You can't tar all bicycle couriers with the same brush," Moscoe says, before proceeding to spread tar liberally.
"But it's free enterprise on wheels. The whole system just encourages (the couriers) to whiz around as fast as they can, bowling people over, bolting in front of cars and causing havoc."
Bike couriers, Moscoe notes are paid strictly on commission, with their take determined solely by the number of deliveries they make.
"Right now there is just an inability to protect the general public who happen to be walking down the sidewalk" says Moscoe, chairman of the Metro Licensing Commission, which has a subcommittee studying the licensing proposal.
"There have to be some standards. They have to be identifiable and there is the possibility of requiring testing for some sort of basic skill level."
Licensing couriers will make it possible to force them to obtain liability insurance, says Moscoe, who hopes to have some kind of regulations in place within a year.
"It will also give us some idea of how many are out there. If you stand at the corner of Queen and Bay, you'd swear there was a million of them."
The most recent count of bicycle couriers was done about two years ago and put them at between 200 and 240, says Toronto planner Daniel Egan, an adviser to the city's cycling committee.
Egan, who admits there are problems with the couriers, is more inclined to support them than Moscoe.
"It's a tough life. It's a school of hard knocks, literally," he says.
"Most of them don't last that long and I expect it's the ones who just get in and get out who cause most of the problems."
Egan suggests that paying the couriers an hourly wage would slow them down. He says they may well be a better option than taxis, trucks and vans for delivering in the downtown core.
But for the couriers themselves, who say $500 a week is the top end of the pay scale, the hassles and hours - up to 12 a day- are a small price to pay for the freedom of the open road.
There are vast differences in their ages and backgrounds and aspirations. In this room they range in age from 22 to 42. There are students, truck drivers, office workers and artists.
"It's rebellion", says 26-year-old Kevin Lehman.
"I'm not in the business world. I'm not a suit. I'm not trying to impress anybody," Lehman says. "The only person I have to worry about is the guy who signs the receipt and myself."
"It's a good life. I love it," says Frank Liddy, 39, who took up his bicycle eight months ago. "It's the way man was meant to live, get out and exercise. I feel about 10 years younger."
Cramped mentally and physically, Cantwell gave up an office chair for a bike seat and has sat on it through rain, snow, and summer sun for the past three years.
"Coming from an office experience I find a more laid-back attitude toward life," he says.
"When you get into an office your whole mind gets an office mentality. You have to schmooz everyone, play office politics. Here, you get on your bike, get on the street and get going."
This common thread often creates strong bonds between the couriers, who spend a lot of off-road time together.
"Mostly we talk about the close calls and the weird things you see every day you work the streets in this city," says 22-year-old Leslie Halden.
"But it's not like New York city, where couriers band together to protect each other," she says.
These rebels often express their nature more graphically in their dress.
The colors of a toucan in a blender, the Spandex shorts, bandannas, tank tops, and signature bike gloves are unmistakeable signs of a courier.
But the Sunwheel bunch, who are required by company policy to tone down their get-ups, say there's practicality behind the pizzazz.
The bandanas are worn around the neck to carry note pads and the microphones from the radios that are their lifeline to their dispatchers.
Their tops are cool and the gloves save skin during almost inevitable spills.
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