FILE – A delivery worker rides a motorized bicycle, July 25, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File) The narrative around street safety all too often pits one group against another: Pedestrians and drivers admonish e-bike riders for traffic violations. E-bike riders berate drivers who swerve into the bike lanes.
The reality is this: while some attempt to divide us by how we navigate the city, we are all users of our streets, subject to the whims of those who benefit most from speed and chaos — the app companies. We should know.
As a rabbi who was recently struck by an e-bike rider traveling at high speed in the wrong direction , with surgically implanted leg hardware to prove it, and the executive director of Worker’s Justice Project , which advocates for delivery workers citywide, the expectation is for us to stand in opposition to one another.
We’re going to do better than that. We are united in the belief that to solve the problem of havoc on our streets, we need to look with clear eyes at its root cause: All of us.
We are all addicted to the convenience of touch-of-a-button delivery. Legislation cannot place the onus exclusively on delivery workers with no recognition of the economic environment in which they work.
Today, we stand together in support of innovative City Council legislation that will help bring order to our streets by regulating the third-party delivery companies that prioritize speed to maximize profits.
In the same way that the city regulated […]
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