Photo by John Wilcox
A pedicab takes a passenger up Ipswich Street, near Lansdowne Street and Fenway Park.
A parade of renegade pedicabs has filled Hub streets this week, shuttling World Series fans around the city, but the free-for-all will soon be over as police plan to crack down on bike taxis.
A proposal by Mayor Thomas M. Menino to require licenses and have police regulate pedicabs was recently signed into law, but rules have yet to be put in place. The loophole has resulted in a sudden blitz of pedicabs on the streets around Fenway Park [map] and has left the door open for virtually anyone to charge money for a ride in a wheeled carriage hooked up to a mountain bike.
“We’ve been working right along on it but then the Red Sox [team stats] and the weather took us by surprise and extended these guys’ season,” said Mark Cohen, director of the Boston Police Licensing Division. “We’ve been working without any rules or regulations but I’m in daily contact with the (pedicab) operators. We’ve got a nice working relationship and these guys are trying hard.”
Menino sought a crackdown on the pedicabs this summer when he banned the eight-seat “party bikes” that had been clogging up major city streets. Menino doesn’t want to ban pedicabs, he simply wants them licensed and regulated like regular taxis.
“He’s always been concerned about them,” said Menino spokeswoman Dot Joyce. “He wants to make sure they’re charging people the right amount and not ripping people off and that they’re following the rules of the road.”
Cohen acknowledged that some of the pedicabs out on Hub streets this week are likely rogue individual operators trying to cash in on the World Series and probably don’t have insurance. The major operator, Boston Pedicab, however, carries a $1 million insurance policy, Cohen said.
Police are still crafting rules and are planning on holding meetings with pedicab operators this winter. By spring, licenses will be required for pedicabs in Boston, Cohen said.
“We’ll make it through the next week or two and then we’ll all sit down and go over the rules,” he said. “We’re going to control the number of these very rigidly.”
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