Pedicabs Don't Work with Big Wheels

The usual suspects snuff a people-powered invention

by Tom Robbins

October 2nd, 2007 8:24 PM

 

Unless you're one of the combatants, New York's Great Pedicab War has passed most of us by, and not unreasonably. Surely, in the age of Iraq and Guantánamo, this is one fracas you could afford to simply sit out.

 

The battle erupted when scores of these goofy-looking tricycles began cruising for customers a few years ago, mainly in Times Square. This promptly put some powerful noses out of joint: The yellow-taxi-fleet owners resented the competition; Broadway theater operators griped that the pedal-pushers blocked traffic; the city's tourist office complained that they made the place look like something out of rickshaw-filled Hong Kong, circa 1935.