{"id":164447,"date":"2020-12-09T14:14:30","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T22:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=164447"},"modified":"2021-01-04T15:30:29","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T23:30:29","slug":"bike-messengers-gearing-up-for-a-new-chapter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/bike-messengers-gearing-up-for-a-new-chapter","title":{"rendered":"Are Bike Messengers Gearing Up For a New Chapter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

K<\/span>evin Bolger knows New York City better than most. Since 1992, Bolger\u2014call him \u2018Squid\u2019\u2014has jockeyed the asphalt as a bicycle messenger. That\u2019s nearly 30 years of riding\u2014usually for five hours a day, six days per week\u2014delivering parcels through snowstorms and heatwaves, weaving between gridlocked lanes of honking traffic, dodging delivery trucks and potholes and pedestrians. It can be a tough line of work, but it\u2019s all Squid has ever known.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a high-turnover profession,\u201d says Squid, who owns and operates Cycle Hawk. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t do it more than six months. Someone that does it for a long time, I don\u2019t know, you fall in love with it. The city is always showing me things that I haven\u2019t seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was the time Squid saw circus elephants walking down Seventh Avenue. Or the time he pedaled past a bank robbery in progress, narrowly avoiding police officers rushing the bank.<\/p>\n

Working as a bike messenger is never dull, not in New York. Squid has delivered advertising materials for a high-end fashion company, maternity dresses for a supermodel and confidential documents to a former Cabinet member.<\/p>\n

\"Cyclist

Kevin Bolger, known as \u2018Squid,\u2019 has jockeyed the asphalt as a bicycle messenger for nearly 30 years of riding. (Photo Credit: Jennie-Jo Marine)<\/p><\/div>\n

In many ways, working cyclists like Squid help keep a city\u2019s heart beating.\u00a0When COVID-19 forced cities and states across the country to effectively shut down earlier this year, bike messengers and food-delivery cyclists in places like New York suddenly found themselves in a critical role.<\/p>\n

While many\u2014including me\u2014have turned to bike delivery work to compensate for lost income during the pandemic, the number of messengers and couriers has declined in recent decades.\u00a0In 1999<\/a>, there were 120,000 couriers and messengers in the country, compared to just under 75,000 in 2019<\/a>, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.<\/p>\n

Blame the internet, in part, for disrupting the messenger industry. Why hire a courier on a fixie to deliver your legal brief when you can zip it across town electronically with the press of a button? Technology\u2014including email and fax machines\u2014reduced business-to-business (or B2B) clientele for couriers, who were no longer needed to dash paper documents between firms, obtain signatures on contracts or file legal papers before courts closed. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the age of this urban icon may not yet be a thing of the past. The widespread use of smartphones has enabled <\/span>a surge in online shopping<\/span><\/a>. This booming business-to-consumer (or B2C) market is also growing the demand for <\/span>same-day<\/span><\/a> delivery, the bike courier\u2019s forte. Technology, it seems, is reviving the need for bike couriers in new ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

Business for food-delivery apps, already rising in the on-demand age, has exploded<\/a>\u00a0during the pandemic. Densely populated cities like New York teem with delivery cyclists sprinting from restaurant to high-rise and back again, their unwieldy messenger bags sagging from the weight of pizzas and burgers stacked deep. Though food-delivery cyclists are not technically considered couriers, many bike messengers who once delivered parcels are now switching to food. Some 50,000<\/a> cyclists work for food-delivery apps in the city, according to a 2012 estimate by the New York Department of Transportation.<\/p>\n

\"Delivery

A delivery biker in downtown Manhattan during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p><\/div>\n

Additionally, online retailers like Amazon and freight companies like United Parcel Service (UPS) and DHL are eyeing cargo bikes\u2014and couriers\u2014with the aim of reducing delivery times and carbon emissions from vehicles in congested urban areas. For bike messengers, these new opportunities might mean the industry is gearing up for a new chapter.<\/p>\n

The heyday of bike messengers<\/h6>\n

Bike messengers have been making deliveries since the dawn of the bicycle. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, telegraph companies employed young men and boys<\/a> to deliver telegrams by bike. UPS was founded in Seattle in 1907 as the American Messenger Company. The company made all of its deliveries on foot or by bicycle until it acquired its first Ford Model T in 1913.<\/p>\n

The bike courier remained a fixture in cities even as cars became ubiquitous. As populations grew, so did the demand for speedy deliveries. The period between 1980 and 2007 is largely considered the heyday of the messenger industry. Films like the 1994 documentary The Need for Speed<\/em> glamorized the bike messenger subculture, painting couriers as adrenaline seekers and exalting their nonconformist way of life. During the ’90s, the Cycle Messenger World Championships<\/a> and North American Cycle Courier Championships\u2014still hallmarks of the courier culture\u2014were established. Many messengers remember that time as the \u201cpaper\u201d era. Anything that needed a signature\u2014advertising proofs, legal briefs, court filings, paychecks, rent checks, visa applications\u2014needed a bike courier.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019ve got kidneys on dry ice or somebody\u2019s retinas on your back, there\u2019s no margin of error. You cannot be late.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gary Brose, owner of Fleetfoot Messenger Service in Seattle, often had 32 bike couriers on the clock during the late \u201890s and early 2000s. \u201cEven though there were peaks and valleys, generally speaking, we got busier every year,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In Washington D.C., Realcourier, Inc., owner-messenger Patrick Riggin remembers hundreds of bike messengers darting through the nation\u2019s capital on Friday afternoons. Riggin regularly delivered to every government building, from the Department of Justice to the White House, until security tightened after 9\/11.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing between 45 and 75 miles per day back then, carrying a big heavy radio, delivering to all of Capitol Hill, every congressman and senator,\u201d says Riggin. \u201cThere was a lot of good money to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n

In those years, messengers could make a modest living delivering full time. Though pay rates vary widely depending on the company and the volume of deliveries, in general, couriers are paid on commission, by package or distance. The quicker or farther the delivery, the more a courier makes. Even so, many couriers still juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. In New York, Squid has raised two children piecing together messenger work with other odd jobs. When the courier work is there, he pulls in anywhere between $700 and $800 per week.<\/p>\n

When Congress passed a law in 2000 validating the use of electronic signatures, many predicted the demise of bike messengers. By then, email was no longer a novelty. Sending digital files as attachments and communicating via instant messaging had become interwoven into the fabric of society<\/span>. But bike couriers still found work delivering what electronic scans, digital signatures or email couldn\u2019t: small packages and large paper items like blueprints. <\/span><\/p>\n

In Denver, Jason Abernathy, or J-Bone, who has worked as a bike messenger for over 40 years, survived by specializing in medical products.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy big money makers were x-rays, blood, body parts, real stuff that really needed delivering fast,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve got kidneys on dry ice or somebody\u2019s retinas on your back, there\u2019s no margin of error. You cannot be late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Couriers like J-Bone who were dependable, fast and could adapt to changing demands had no trouble finding work, even as clients continued to digitize and modernize their processes.<\/p>\n

\u2018<\/span>We\u2019re still here\u2019<\/h6>\n

Not every courier survived the changing times, especially when the Great Recession hit in late 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of my clients just went bankrupt and disappeared altogether,\u201d recalls Austin Horse, a three-time North American Cycle Courier Champion and two-time Cycle Messenger World Champion.<\/p>\n

But the history of messengers has been littered with predictions of the industry\u2019s demise, he says.\u00a0\u201cIf you go back in time, you\u2019ll see people saying the fax machine and the telegraph were going to destroy the bike messenger scene, but they didn\u2019t,” says Horse,\u00a0who started riding as a messenger in 2004. “We’re still here.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now the internet, which undoubtedly disrupted the messenger landscape, is proving crucial in keeping some cyclists on the road as more people work from home and restaurants operating under pandemic restrictions switch to take-out and food delivery. Food-delivery apps employ tens of thousands of cyclists across the country, many of whom deliver for multiple apps to make a living.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, others like Horse are working with e-commerce giants to provide last-mile cargo bike deliveries in densely populated urban areas.<\/p>\n

\"Cyclist

Photo Courtesy: NY Department of Transportation<\/p><\/div>\n

Cargo bike deliveries<\/h6>\n

In December 2019, New York City launched<\/a> the Commercial Cargo Bike Program aimed at reducing congestion and carbon emissions from delivery trucks. At least 90 cargo bikes are delivering grocery orders to New Yorkers from Whole Foods Market locations, according to Amazon.<\/p>\n

UPS is also involved in the New York City cargo bike program. The company has been testing the use of electric-assist cargo bikes in the U.S. since 2016<\/a> and in Europe since 2012. Between the pilots in New York and in Portland, Oregon, UPS is embracing its roots as a means of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions<\/a>\u00a0by 12 percent by 2025.<\/p>\n

Carriers like UPS are looking to e-bikes as a cost-effective solution to delivering in high-activity areas that have constrained parking, says Anne Goodchild, the director of the University of Washington\u2019s Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center<\/a>. UPS received $33.8 million in parking fines in 2019, according to the New York City Department of Finance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn dense urban areas, a bike can actually move more quickly than a car,\u201d says Goodchild. You can often park them on the sidewalk or ride in bike lanes to beat traffic, she adds.<\/p>\n

\"Cyclist

Photo courtesy of UPS.<\/p><\/div>\n

Still, cargo bikes are limited<\/a> in how far and how much they can deliver. E-bike legislation also varies state by state<\/a>, making it hard for freight companies to scale e-bike delivery programs.<\/p>\n

Until recently, e-bikes, which are used by thousands of food-delivery workers, were illegal to ride in New York City. In 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio cracked down<\/a> on some models with throttles, calling them dangerous. (City data suggests otherwise according to one analysis<\/a>: In 2018, e-bikes were responsible for only nine out of more than 11,000 pedestrian injuries.) Cycling advocates believe<\/a> the e-bike crackdown unfairly targeted food delivery workers, many of whom are immigrants and people of color. Many immigrant food-delivery workers favor e-bikes, according to a paper<\/a> by Do Jun Lee;\u00a0their faster speeds allow riders\u2014considered gig workers\u2014to deliver more orders and increase their earnings.<\/p>\n

In March, De Blasio suspended<\/a> enforcement of e-bikes during the pandemic because of increased delivery demands by New Yorkers in lockdown. (The city legalized e-bikes in June 2020 after the state passed a law.)<\/p>\n

\u2018<\/span>Survive the drought\u2019<\/h6>\n

Being a working cyclist\u2014especially during a pandemic\u2014is still far from stable. Couriers risk workplace exposure to the coronavirus at almost the same rate<\/a> as nurses, according to recent government data analyzed by the New York Times<\/em>. These thousands of couriers, mostly independent contractors, have no health insurance or hazard pay. Couriers already suffer greater injury rates than the average American worker. A 2002 study<\/a> on Boston\u2019s bicycle messengers found an annual incidence rate for injuries to be 47 out of 100 couriers, as opposed to the national average of 2.8 out of 100<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In New York City, Squid is proving that he can adapt to an ever-changing climate\u2014just as the messenger industry has done for the past decades. He has replaced lost clients with new ones. He\u2019s still able to pay his bills without needing to pick up food-delivery work. Time on the bike has helped keep his immune system strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants their stuff yesterday,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re not moving fast, somebody else is. [The messenger industry] has definitely taken a big hit, but for little people like me, I think we\u2019re going to benefit if we can survive the drought. We\u2019re gonna come out stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  evin Bolger knows New York City better than most. Since 1992, Bolger\u2014call him \u2018Squid\u2019\u2014has jockeyed the asphalt as a bicycle messenger. That\u2019s nearly 30 years of riding\u2014usually for five hours a day, six days per week\u2014delivering parcels through snowstorms and heatwaves, weaving between gridlocked lanes of honking traffic, dodging delivery trucks and potholes and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9145,"featured_media":164675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1999,1127,727],"internal-tag":[],"class_list":["post-164447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycle","tag-covid-19","tag-cycling","tag-latest-posts"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/bike-messengers-gearing-up-for-a-new-chapter","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Are Bike Messengers Gearing Up For a New Chapter?","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/bike-messengers-gearing-up-for-a-new-chapter","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/bike-messengers-gearing-up-for-a-new-chapter"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/11\/iStock-1240363069.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/11\/iStock-1240363069.jpg?fit=2000%2C1333"},"articleSection":"Cycle","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Phuong Le"}],"creator":["Phuong Le"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["covid-19","cycling","latest posts"],"dateCreated":"2020-12-09T22:14:30Z","datePublished":"2020-12-09T22:14:30Z","dateModified":"2021-01-04T23:30:29Z"},"rendered":"