A Bitter Holiday for Pedicabs

By J. DAVID GOODMAN

Nuriddin Shamsiev abandoned his usual spot in Central Park on Monday and pedaled his way down Fifth Avenue to search among the throngs spilling into the streets around Rockefeller Center. Despite the sun, it was shaping up to be another tough day — only one customer in four hours — in what has been a season of tough days for the city’s pedicab industry.

Mr. Shamsiev, a 24-year-old Tajik driver, summed up the situation in two words: “Very bad.”

“Last Christmas was much better,” he added. “But the business went down — you don’t make the same money.”

The economic crisis, a series of wet weekends and new regulations requiring licenses for pedicab drivers have created a perfect storm of misery in New York’s pedicab industry, which depends on the holidays to get through the slow winter months. This year, owners and drivers report, the slow season has come early, with potentially dire consequences for some operators.

“I have no drivers left — at all,” said Ari Nichols, owner of Manhattan Pedicabs. He said he had been undercut on rental rates by other operators in a fierce competition for those few licensed drivers. “There’s three bikes for each driver,” he said. Mr. Nichols is trying to sell some of his pedicabs in order to “hang on one more season,” but said it “would have to be a miracle for me” to make it to the summer.

Many owners blamed the licensing requirement, which went into effect before Thanksgiving and requires pedicab operators to obtain both a driver’s license and a special pedicab license. The regulation has put in a crimp in the number of “shotgun” riders who want to start driving right away — perhaps the intent of the regulation — and has also been a problem for many veteran drivers, said Gregg Zukowski, president of New York City Pedicab Owners Association. Some of these veterans had outstanding fines or other issues with their driver’s licenses that had to be taken care of before they could obtain a pedicab license.
A driver searches for customers on Fifth Avenue near Rockefeller Center.

“The impact of the regulation has been brutal,” said Mr. Zukowski, who is also the owner of Revolution Rickshaws and a driver himself. “We always face a dry season in the winter, but this year, we’ve lost the whole holiday season.” Normally his 18 pedicabs would all be rented during the weeks before Christmas and New Year’s. But this month, only two or three have been rented by drivers on a given day.

License plates have been issued for 889 pedicabs and 474 drivers have applied for licenses, according to the Department of Consumer Affairs. The number of licensed businesses with at least one pedicab is 172 and the department is no longer accepting new applications. There is no cap on the number of pedicab driver’s licenses.

Like others, Mr. Zukowski has lowered the rental rates, but to little effect. “The whole industry has been thrown for a curve,” he said, adding that the only way his business can survive is by refocusing on rickshaw van rentals and deliveries.

There are simply not enough licensed drivers, he said, adding, “The only people who are doing okay are the solo-owner-operators.”

But tell that to Mark Stringer, 44, a seven-year veteran driver whose pedicab is his only source of income. “Normally Christmas builds, gets busier and busier and busier,” he said. But this year it’s been less reliable.

“Me and me buddy, we go out, and one day, I’d be O.K., and he’d have $32. Another day, he’d be fine and I’d have like $27,” Mr. Stringer said. “It was almost like there’s not enough money for everybody out there.”