I can’t go anywhere in the city without someone shouting out, “Hey Gridlock Sam, what are you gonna do about all these e-bike and moped delivery guys?” It doesn’t help when I tell them I haven’t been in city government for well more than three decades. But I still have opinions and ideas and experience.
Mayor Adams is creating a Department of Sustainable Delivery. This is a good first step toward addressing this and many other delivery issues. Let’s focus on the food delivery people also known as deliveristas.
When it comes to the deliveristas, I have a soft spot in my heart. I was a delivery boy for five years for my father’s small grocery store in Bensonhurst six decades ago. I certainly didn’t follow any rules or regulations but then again, I was a teenager.
Personally, I find the deliveristas follow rules more than other moped or e-bike riders but that is, admittedly, a low bar. Nonetheless, a report by NYC in November 2022 found they have the highest fatality rates of any profession including the previous most deadly industry, construction workers.
When I think of the deliverista problem I think of the “Pogo” comic in which he says, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We New Yorkers think we are entitled to 30-minute room service 24 hours/day. This entitlement accelerated during the pandemic and is now pretty much institutionalized.
Pre-pandemic, when I browsed the apps for food deliveries the restaurants were generally limited to a mile or so. Today I can order a delivery from restaurants five miles or more from my home. Hence the need for speed. Deliveristas live off of tips which remain the same for one mile vs. five mile trip.
Besides getting deliveristas to follow safe riding rules the city needs to deal with battery fires (18 deaths in past year), lack of insurance, reporting of crashes, driver and app identification and enforcement combined with education. This is not the first time the city has dealt with an app transportation revolution; it gained experience with Uber, Lyft et al. and made sure some of the burden was placed on the app companies themselves. In that vein, here are the elements I think should go into this effort:
Mopeds already require license plates, a driver’s license to operate and insurance. I suspect many, if not most of the deliveristas using mopeds, do not have all three (or any, in many cases). The app companies should support their delivery people with insurance and education and financial assistance to obtain licenses. Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal has proposed legislation requiring insurance at the point of sale similar to what car dealers do. A good idea worth exploring.
App deliveries should have an excess distance charge. Set a per-mile fee for deliveries longer than say a mile, with the revenue going to the worker. This would make it more expensive for consumers to get deliveries from far away giving a new meaning to shop local. The result would be fewer vehicle miles traveled, and less need for speed.
ID cards for workers and visible identifications of the delivery app company. The city should provide unique IDs for workers as it does for livery drivers. In addition, the app companies should provide drivers with company ID tags that can straddle bikes or carriers providing a unique alphanumeric and the app company name to identify errant raiders whizzing by. Commercial vehicles in NYC are required to have identification on their sides in 3″ or larger lettering.
Technology to improve safety. Deliveristas all have cell phones. GPS technologies are or soon-to-be able to report on speeds, red light running, wrong-way travel and even riding on sidewalks. This could be used for planning purposes and as a way for app companies to rate riders and weed out the bad ones similar to the car app companies, and in the long-term, could drive down a company’s safety rating, making them more inclined to enforce.
Civilian enforcement and adjudication process. When I drove a cab more than a half-century ago it was regulated by the NYPD Hack Bureau with cops enforcing taxi rules adjudicated by criminal courts. Shortly thereafter the Taxi and Limousine Commission was established which has improved service and the judicial process for both drivers and passengers as compared with the Hack Bureau. The reason this is so important is that many of the deliveristas are recent immigrants and worried about appearing in a criminal hearing that may result in deportations. I also recommend the new entity have civilians equipped to enforce the rules.
Schwartz is a former NYC traffic commissioner.
Delivering on sustainable delivery
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21.02.2024
I can’t go anywhere in the city without someone shouting out, “Hey Gridlock Sam, what are you gonna do about all these e-bike and moped delivery guys?” It doesn’t help when I tell them I haven’t been in city government for well more than three decades. But I still have opinions and ideas and experience.
Mayor Adams is creating a Department of Sustainable Delivery. This is a good first step toward addressing this and many other delivery issues. Let’s focus on the food delivery people also known as deliveristas.
When it comes to the deliveristas, I have a soft spot in my heart. I was a delivery boy for five years for my father’s small grocery store in Bensonhurst six decades ago. I certainly didn’t follow any rules or regulations but then again, I was a teenager.
Personally, I find the deliveristas follow rules more than other moped or e-bike riders but that is, admittedly, a low bar. Nonetheless, a report by NYC in November 2022 found they have the highest fatality rates of any profession including the previous most deadly industry, construction workers.
When I think of the deliverista problem I........
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