Life in the Trike Lane

…and mention that I work for a rickshaw company, and people start telling me their pedicab stories. One guest recounted an urgent mission to pick up travel documents for his boss. It was 4:30pm in Midtown, and the embassy was about a mile away. He started sprinting, but got winded. He couldn’t get a gas-guzzling taxi (shift change time!). So he hailed a pedicab. And completed his errand, no problem.

Another guest said she loves riding in pedicabs because it’s the best way to be fully enveloped by the city but fully relaxed at the same time. At first I thought, “That’s not true! What about walking?” And then I recalled playing chicken with drivers who’d rather not yield, dodging tourists who use the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade as a photo studio, getting caught behind a couple meanderers on a narrow sidewalk…and so on. Yes, I’ve been walking NYC streets since I could toddle – which means there’s not much that can slow me below 4 miles an hour – but I can’t claim it’s always a centering experience.

My first pedicab ride - October 2008.

I took my first pedicab ride long after reaching the age of reason; I’ve taken maybe a half dozen more since then, most often with Gregg in the saddle. I can’t attest to complete calm during those trips, since Gregg likes to whip around turns, squeeze through tight spots, and do whirly-whirls while waiting for lights to change. However: I’ve always known I was in expert hands, and enjoyed the breeze, the lights, the sun, the sights.

Joan Didion said that when choosing what to write about, one ought to look for the moments in one’s past that shimmer around the edges. That criterion applies to many of my stints in a rickshaw. One of my fondest pedicab memories involves returning from a month at an upstate artists’ colony a couple summers ago, with two heavy backpacks that I could have hauled the few blocks from the Port Authority to our apartment, but not without considerable difficulty. When I walked out of the bus station, there was Gregg, at the corner of 40th & 9th, waiting for to pedal me home.

My most recent pedicab ride - October 2011. How's that for pedicab magic?

I think what you get when you ride in a pedicab is the chance to take notice: traveling by chariot makes everything new around you. It splashes you with magic. It poses the question: If a simple trip from A to B can yield such revelation, where else might wonderment be waiting?*

*Well, unfortunately, it might be waiting at the end of your pedicab ride, when you hear the driver claiming you owe some astronomical sum of money (say, 90 bucks for 6 blocks). My stars! To prevent this sort of surprise, always request a price up front. Don’t get in till you get  one!  There are cheats in them there streets!

In the conclusion to Reinventing Collapse, Dmitry Orlov says, “I have worked very hard to write a book on an important but seriously depressing subject that’s nevertheless fun to read.” Thanks to a lively inductive faculty, a fast-paced narrative structure, and a Saharan sense of humor, he has succeeded in the extreme. On the other hand, I almost always enjoy reading dire predictions about what will happen when the oil runs out. So maybe I’m predisposed to find this book a gas.

Lego rendering of a pedicab ride, post-collapse - note the crude design of the home-grown vehicle, and the passenger's assertion of his right to bear arms.

But how, you might ask, do collapse and its reinvention intersect with the trike lane? Well, Orlov has lots to say about transportation in the post-cheap-oil age. In a speech given in 2009 in San Francisco, Orlov asked, “So, what can we do to get our…missions accomplished in spite of chronic fuel shortages? The most obvious idea, of course, is to not use any fuel. Bicycles, and cargo bikes in particular, are an excellent adaptation.” He also suggests that those interested in retaining the ability to haul heavy stuff  (without stooping to pushing shopping carts) “start breeding donkeys. Horses are finicky and expensive, but donkeys can be very cost-effective and make good pack animals.” (His other recommendation in the fuel-free category is the sailboat. The Brooklyn-based Mast Brothers have gotten out in front on that one: This past June they hauled 20 tons of cacao beans from the Dominican Republic to Red Hook by cargo sailboat.)

In fact, donkeys might be a surer bet than trikes in a time of steep energy descent, since trikes have a couple of the same weaknesses that cars do: First, they’re easiest to ride on smooth, paved roads. Second, the parts they’re made of (and the raw materials used to fashion those parts) hail from all over the globe. How would an operator get hold of new trikes, or replacement parts, in the event of a combination transportation/trade breakdown? New donkeys, on the other hand, are one thing we (or anyway a couple of enterprising donkeys) are still capable of making here in America. Replacement donkey parts? They roll their own, out of carbohydrate, fat, and protein.

A donkey would eat that grass for lunch!

For trikes, the parts problem is probably the greater concern; the road issue has workarounds. It may be highly unpleasant to ride a trike over, say, Belgian blocks, but it’s not impossible. Also, while I doubt that any non-petroleum-based road surface will ever be quite as silky as asphalt, it is quite possible to create an acceptably smooth cycling surface from well-laid red brick, or blue stone. Heck, wooden planks would work as well – don’t I bike over the Brooklyn Bridge a half dozen times a week? (By the way, check out the new “Pedestrian Safety” agents on the promenade – finally, some peacekeepers in the war zone!)

In Park Slope, a Turkish-made pedicab goes native.

At a museum in Union, Maine, last month, I saw an ancient bicycle made (I believe) of iron, wood, and rubber. It had solid tires (not ideal, when you’re speeding down a paved bike path; possibly ideal when you’re, say, hauling potatoes over a rutted road). It was definitely made in the USA. Of course, we don’t have rubber trees here – but once the automobile becomes obsolete, there’ll be plenty of old car tires ready to be repurposed for use on bikes. I wonder how many bikes you can outfit with tires from a single car?

And speaking of repurposing: Wouldn’t it be exciting if the High Line became a train route again? If Chelsea Piers (for example) became a giant farmers’ market, supplied by barges chugging down from the Hudson Valley? If, in general, infrastructure converted to luxury use were to regain the virtue of necessity? It will be fascinating to watch this vibrant and preposterous island of ours shed its petroleum-predicated pretensions.

Question: If a parking spot spends most of its time occupied by an empty motor vehicle, does that make it a vacant lot?

Brooklyn-based 596 Acres has created a gorgeous large-format map showing precisely that amount of land lying vacant in the Better Borough: Their purpose is to encourage aspiring hayseeds to turn this land to agricultural use.

A 596 Acres poster graces the fence of a vacant lot in Gowanus.

The City Council just passed a law requiring that “the Department of City-wide Administrative Services (DCAS)…create and maintain a searchable database of all city-owned and leased real property” in order to “empower the public” to use “underused or unused property” for, among other things, urban agriculture, community gardening, and open space.

The people of New York City are hungry for land in which to grow and play – hungry enough that both grassroots groups and city government are stepping forward to help.

Meanwhile, in the transportation world, PARK(ing) Day is coming up (this year it’s Friday, September 16th). PARK(ing) Day (in its own words) “is an annual, worldwide event that invites citizens everywhere to transform metered parking spots into temporary parks for the public good.”

PARK(ing) Day, NYC, 2009 (photo by Kate Nicholson, from parkingday.org)

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Are you seeing the potential confluence here?

Making PARK(ing) Day permanent – and implementing it in a systematic way – could increase the amount of land available for gardening, food-growing, and all-around good times by a heck of a lot more than 596 acres.

According to my (unscientific) data collection efforts, the average parking space occupies (conservatively) 90 square feet (6 feet wide by 15 feet long). So you’d need to repurpose 484 on-street spots to gain an acre of farmland – or 288,464 spots to get 596 acres.

Sounds like a lot of spaces, right? Not really, when you consider that the total number of on-street parking spaces in New York City falls somewhere between 3.4 and 4.4 million. If we set up shop squarely in the middle of that range, and posit that NYC has 3.9 million on-street parking spaces, then we can estimate that NYC has 8,058 acres of potential farmland, evenly distributed throughout all streets in all neighborhoods in all boroughs. Yes, every house, apartment building, office tower and small business could indeed have a green space right outside its front door.

Where would all the cars go? Well, they might not have to go anywhere, if their owners followed the scintillating example set by Richard Register and his Vegetable Car, back in 1979:

The Vegetable Car (from Ecocity Builders web site)

Now that’s a great use for a car!

As anyone who frequents the Brooklyn Bridge promenade knows, it’s a war zone between pedestrians and cyclists. Usually, it seems that the pedestrians – by dint of sheer numbers and pervasive obliviousness – are winning. But last Saturday morning, as Gregg and I pedaled over the river to experience Summer Streets, the tide had temporarily turned: Bikers were trespassing in the walkers’ lane, rather than the other way around. The pull of the opportunity to bike car-free in Manhattan is a powerful one – in part, I hypothesize, because many New Yorkers, in particular many Brooklynites, are scared shitless of braving motor-vehicle mayhem – i.e., normal conditions – in “the city,” in ordinary time (as was I, not so long ago).

Cyclists wait sanguinely at stop light.

I was actually a bit ambivalent about experiencing Summer Streets this year, since it meant exiting the Better Borough for the Mad-hatter-house on a day when I didn’t absolutely have to. But by the time I was breezing up Lafayette towards Houston, I’d remembered why Summer Streets is a can’t-miss affair: Being accorded due respect as a cyclist – having all the room I want, with none of the customary anxiety – makes me feel glorious. It’s a glimpse of transportation Eden, of a time when the personal automobile will give way to the family trikester and the truck will give way to the freight train.

Now that's what I call a bike lane!

Not feeling fear, while biking the streets of Manhattan, is a big deal, both because it’s so unusual and because it has such substantial salutary side effects. I noticed I could sort of moodle along, absorbing the urban pageant, chatting with Gregg, feeling the flow of ideas through my head. For once it was enough to be alert, rather than intently and aggressively on guard. This, I believe, is a positive condition for citizens to be in. It promotes sociability, creativity, and safety.

I totally appreciate that the DOT wants to keep us from getting hit by trucks - one foolproof way to do that is to replace trucks with trains and freight trikes!

Of course, Summer Streets was not entirely car-free. Every few blocks we had to stop and wait for crosstown traffic to lumber across our path. (I could swear there were more stops this year than there were a couple years ago – what’s up with that?) In RR’s considered – and completely unbiased – opinion, motor vehicles should be limited to crossing Park Avenue at the two-way streets (23^rd, 34^th, 42^nd, 57^th). Come on, DOT – let us sail! Just for these three days, just for these eighteen hours a year.

Time's Up! represents!

Just as the clock was about to strike thirteen – just as the combustion engines were poised to repossess our one thin ribbon of sanity – I rolled past the Brooklyn Bridge entrance to the Governors Island ferry terminal, for my first visit to the Coast Guard ghost town…which offered up one pleasant transportation surprise after another.

Sanity has to end somewhere....

Governors Island is to transport forms as Galapagos was to Darwin’s finches. Set apart from the mainland – and in between all-consuming purposes – Governors Island has had the chance to develop a distinctive transport culture.

Not to mention a distinctive trash-sorting culture! Go, Earth Matter!

The ferry running from Manhattan to Governors Island hosts a bike rack as long as the boat (space for maybe 50-70 bikes). On the island itself, I saw only a handful of motor vehicles – and those I did see didn’t seem to be in a hurry. At one point I was able to pass a pickup truck, it was moving so slowly. Rather than honk at the walkers and pedalers slowing him down, the truck driver meandered along behind them.

Quadcycle rules the road!

Double-wide bike lanes

The dominant vehicle on Governors Island (the pickup driver seemed to recognize) is not the motor vehicle but the cycle, whether equipped with two wheels or four. Bike and Roll has installed a vast rental fleet on the island, comprising hundreds of bikes and dozens of quadcycles. Each quadcycle has room for four big people on seats, plus two or three little ones in the luggage rack up front. I saw couples, groups of teenagers, and entire families getting their group exercise as they pedaled along the car-scarce thoroughfares.

To borrow a phrase from The Greenhorns: "The irresistible fleet of bicycles"

The smaller fleet of quadcycles

Quadcycle in profile

Quadcycle from the front - doing its impression of an automobile grille

The island boasts vehicles with odd numbers of wheels as well: Earth Matter deploys a customized Worksman trike in support of its composting operation, while Blue Marble sells organic ice cream out of another Worksman three-wheeler. In the one-der-wheeled category I found a collection of benches that are essentially elongated wheelbarrows, hence can be easily shifted from spot to spot.

Earth Matter's compost cycle

Blue Marble's ice-cream cycle

Bench-barrow

For those who’d rather not walk or pedal, there’s a small, open-air jitney that makes frequent trips among all the island’s major points of interest. Since its motor is completely silent, I’m guessing it’s fully electric.

The Governors Island jitney

On the ferry from Governors Island to Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, I didn’t see any bike racks, but I also didn’t have any trouble stashing my bike – and I found the processes of boarding and debarking, bike in tow, to be pleasingly smooth.

If she can hold that torch up for over a hundred years...surely we can do a little pedaling? For the sake of energy liberty?

If a serious conversation were to (re)develop about cutting off – or even limiting, or placing a price on – motor-vehicle access to Manhattan, lots of people would go ballistic. Which makes sense, if all you see is loss. But if you cycle (or walk, or skate, or skip) through Summer Streets – if you spend a few hours in the calm of Governors Island – you’ll get a taste of what we stand to gain: Safety. Sociability. Freedom from fear. Fresh air. Exercise. Exhilaration. Maybe – when a city kicks its addiction to “cheap” gas and “easy” transport – everybody wins.

Where are you from originally?
Baltimore, Maryland.

How long have you lived in NYC?
I arrived here for good in 1994. I came here originally in 1975 for one year of acting school and to have the shit scared out of me.

When did you start riding a pedicab?
June 2009.

What got you started?
I was taking an acting class – a very honest acting class where we talked about our lives – and there was this one kid who talked about being a pedicab driver. It sounded like a pretty interesting way to use the talents and abilities I have as a communicator and an entertainer.

What do you do besides pedicab?
I’m an entertainer. I’m an actor and a singer. Right now I’m rehearsing for Destinations, which is part of the New York International Fringe Festival. I’ll be playing a bass player in a band. It’s a successful band that broke up because of drugs but reunited. I have to appear as a bass player who’s been playing for twenty years.

Do you ride in Central Park, on the streets, or both?
Both, but I would rather spend all my time in Central Park. I spend 5-10% of my time on the streets, the rest in the park. The park is my preference.

Lee in his element

What do you like most about pedicab riding?
Besides the general beauty of being in Central Park every day, I think it’s those times when the tour of the park ascends to something more than a tour of the park. We bond. That’s something I didn’t expect when I started out, and it happens with most of my passengers. This wonderful bonding with humans from all over the world. Global bonding.

What do you like least?
Two things. The first thing is the unnecessary hassling that we get from park rangers and police officers and the other thing is the other pedicab drivers who give us a bad name by ripping people off on prices and disobeying the law. When a cop sees me he’s seeing, oh, I’m one of those guys. I’m not. I’m one of the good guys.

What strategies do you use to get yourself out of the doldrums?
Realizing that every day is different. It’s gonna manifest, it’s gonna happen however. You’re not gonna know. So if it’s a bad day, relax. Don’t worry. Tomorrow’s another day. If it’s a good day, don’t think you’re on a roll. You could crash tomorrow. Tomorrow is a totally different day. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Which of course can be applied to everything.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this pedicab driver from his appointed rounds.

What’s the best fare you’ve ever had?
The best fare I ever had was taking a girl and her boyfriend through Strawberry Fields. She was moved to tears. She’s from Baltimore too, and we became friends. We’ve seen each other a few times since then, when she comes up for business. The best rides are the ones that start relationships that last past the tour.

The worst?
I think maybe the one where I gave this lady a real good price on a ride to F.A.O. Schwarz from Times Square and the credit card charge didn’t go through on my iPhone. I let her go in good faith; she said she’d email me the money. I contacted her a couple times and it was clear she wasn’t going to. That was just sad ‘cause I gave her a good deal. Ouch!

Another time, on a group ride down to Tribeca or some place, this one guy who was that obnoxious kind of drunk kept saying, “Come on, come on!” as if I was racing with the other riders, and started slapping me. I got really irritated by that.

What quality does a person absolutely have to have – besides physical fitness – to succeed as a pedicab driver in Manhattan?
Tolerance. Resilience. You have to develop a hard shell or a hard skin so you don’t respond to everyone who’s beeping at you. Patience. An attractive personality.

What advice would you give to a beginning driver on how to sell rides or, in general, how to succeed in this business?
Look for something else to do. There’s too many of us already.

What’s your stance on requiring pedicab drivers to quote a fare up front?
Duh! Of course. This is the only way to prevent the frequent rip-offs that do happen. The price needs to be mentioned up front or else there’s that question. It’s the only way to prevent the dishonest pedicabbers from taking advantage of the patron.

Anything else you want to share about life in the trike lane?
The thing that comes up all the time is it’s so hard to sell the ride and yet everyone who gets in the pedicab has a great time. And I’ve been transformed. I’ve found this a transformational experience physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It really has grounded me a lot more.

Lee Buckman, pedicab driver: http://www.bestpedicab.com
Lee Buckman, entertainer: http://www.leebuckman.com
Catch Lee at the NY Fringe: http://www.destinations.us.com/