After heated debates on the subject for almost a year, Boston’s metropolis council not too long ago passed an ordinance addressing what it deems “harmful circumstances” brought on by scooters and e-bikes operated by meals supply drivers. As an alternative of holding these answerable for the unsafe road circumstances—the drivers themselves—the council as an alternative determined to focus on supply platforms.
In June 2024, the Boston police division and Mayor’s workplace warned supply corporations of an impending crackdown based mostly on what they described as “widespread and ongoing incidents of working crimson lights, driving on metropolis sidewalks, driving the improper approach down one-way streets, driving at speeds in extra of posted restricted, and collisions.” The mayor’s workplace cited over 100 complaints filed within the final yr relating to reckless moped drivers, a lot of which allegedly concerned unregistered scooters working illegally inside the metropolis.
“Boston can not be the Wild West,” said Councilor Ed Flynn, who represents the town’s second district. “Whether or not it is vehicles, mopeds, filth bikes, electrical bikes, or bikes, everybody needs to be obeying the identical guidelines of the street.”
Whereas nobody desires an inflow of scooter-related accidents—and few, if any, would endorse issues like driving on sidewalks in closely foot-trafficked areas—Boston’s ordinance is curious in its selective utility. It particularly applies to outstanding gig corporations specializing in meals supply from eating places, however does not apply to corporations that concentrate on grocery supply.
The presumed logic is {that a} DoorDash scooter driver choosing up a Chipotle burrito is extra more likely to entry sidewalks with numerous pedestrians than an Instacart driver in a big, open grocery parking zone. This overlooks the fact that the majority city grocery shops lack conventional suburbia-style heaps, or {that a} grocery shopper is simply as more likely to ship to a high-rise house in a busy space as a driver carrying a 5 Guys order.
Additional including to the arbitrary nature of the brand new ordinance, it solely applies to supply corporations that fulfill at the very least one million orders per yr. However with regards to street security, a scooter or e-bike driver’s recklessness would hardly ever appear correlated to who offers his or her paycheck, any multiple may assume {that a} Domino’s pizza supply driver is robotically extra harmful than a driver from an area pizzeria. If something, drivers for bigger gig corporations could also be safer provided that these corporations normally require their drivers to be at the very least 18 years previous even for scooter and bike supply, whereas native joints may make use of 16- or 17-year-old excessive schoolers for cheaper labor (16 is the minimum age to function an e-bike in Massachusetts).
One motive for the clunky and selective utility of the brand new ordinance is that it’s drivers, not e-platforms, who’re behind the wheels of a scooter or e-bike.
“Boston already has complete visitors legal guidelines designed to handle security issues related to meals supply drivers,” said Councilor Erin Murphy, certainly one of solely two councilmembers to vote towards the ordinance. “Efficient enforcement of those present rules ought to be our major technique, reasonably than introducing further laws that could be redundant and burdensome.” (Paradoxically, Boston officers have even pushed using e-bikes for sure varieties of deliveries lately in an effort to cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions.)
The proliferation of e-bikes and scooters in closely city areas raises necessary policy issues that deserve considerate deliberation. As senior fellow on the Manhattan Institute Nicole Gelinas has pointed out, a lot of the “battle” between scooters and pedestrians has been “created by transportation planners who pit walkers, cyclists and now scooterists towards one another by persevering with to commit much more road house to the automobile.”
However as an alternative of taking a look at themselves—or the drivers truly answerable for Beantown’s issues—Boston’s progressive planners apparently discover it a lot simpler to maintain focusing on the gig economic system boogeyman.
