Growing number of pedicab firms takes to the streets
Tips-only payment structure ensures entertaining rides.
Diego Orlandini, a full-time bicycle taxi driver for Orlando Rickshaw Co., starts his workweek at a bike shop on Church Street.
The pedicab company rents space there, and on any given Saturday evening it's filled with full- and part-time pedicab drivers getting their gear and renting pedicabs, which cost $3,100 and up to buy.
After Orlandini pays his weekly $100 fee to Orlando Rickshaw Co. for the bike taxi rental, maintenance and insurance, he gets his modern-day rickshaw and heads toward Orange Avenue or Wall Street to spend the night ferrying revelers from one hot spot to the next. He's strictly paid in tips, and on a bad night, Orlandini may go home broke; on a good one, he may make $100.
Orlando Rickshaw Co. is one of at least four pedicab companies now providing a flourishing alternative transportation mode in downtown Orlando, thanks to high gas prices and heavy evening party traffic.
Regulation on horizon? Exactly how many local pedicab firms exist is unknown, because few are listed in the phone book and no licensing is required.
But Why Walk Pedicab Co. owner Gina Garcia says customers generally can tell who's who by the color of the pedicab or the driver's shirt. For example, Garcia's company drives smaller, red pedicabs; Orlando Pedicab's rigs are yellow and their drivers wear bright yellow shirts; Orlando Rickshaw Co.'s pedicabs are decked out in red and black with its drivers wearing blue; Luxury Pedicabs have gray and silver pedicabs; and the independent drivers usually drive orange or green rigs.
Although the colors of their clothes and pedicabs vary, all the businesses have something in common: Orlando pedicab drivers work for tips only, the industry is unregulated, and companies are not required to carry insurance.
However, this isn't true for all cities.
In fact, many in the pedicab business wish Orlando was more like Key West, where pedicabs are regulated and required to charge $1 a minute; or Denver, which also regulates pedicabs and requires drivers to charge $2 a block with a $5 minimum fee. [Denver's regulations DO NOT require charging fares of $2 a block and $5 minimum. However, drivers are not allowed to charge more than $2 per block. That would be considered gouging. Denver does require licensing, background checks, and insurance.]
In Santa Barbara, Calif., pedicab operators must undergo background checks and meet certain standards, including carrying liability insurance -- something Howard Gossack would like to see here. Regulation would make the local pedicab industry more stable, says Gossack, owner of 2-year-old Orlando Rickshaw Co.
If the industry remains unregulated, the city eventually could decide to ban pedicabs, he says. In Las Vegas, county commissioners took this route in 2004 and banned pedicabs from the famed Las Vegas strip. Most pedicab companies left Las Vegas after the ban was passed.
However, Gossack is optimistic that licensing will happen someday. "I think having a city license will do a lot to legalize us in their eyes," he says.
City of Orlando spokesperson Heather Allebaugh says the city is just beginning to explore the idea of regulating pedicabs and that banning them is not on the agenda. She says the city wants to balance public safety with the character that pedicabs provide.
Liability concerns Garcia also supports licensing -- but soon, there will be no Why Walk Pedicab drivers on the streets of downtown Orlando, except possibly on major holidays.
That's because liability costs are driving Garcia to pull out of the downtown area and, instead, focus on weddings, birthday parties and special events such as the Winter Park Art Festival that attract advertisers who want to advertise on the cabs.
"The $20 or $30 we get off the driver isn't worth what happens when a drunk falls off a pedicab," she says, adding that Why Walk Pedicab once was sued for an accident it was not involved in simply because it was the only pedicab business listed in the phone book at the time.
However, while pedicab drivers support the idea of regulation, some balk at the idea of having set fees, saying it would remove the industry's whimsicality.
After all, a pedicab ride is less about transportation and more about the overall experience of having a personable and entertaining driver, says Why Walk Pedicab driver Jule Pierre-Louis. In addition, he says the competition for tips between drivers results in better service to the public, with the rides becoming more of a concierge service on wheels.
And putting a set rate on the experience would detract from the quality of service, says Nate Gilbert, a full-time driver for Orlando Pedicab. "If you work for tips, you have to be a personalized employee -- you have to work at your job," he says. "If there was a set price, everyone would be the same."
What's your preference? Established fares, tips only, or something in between? Is regulations a good thing or a bad thing? Who is responsible for enforcement?
