Amid mounting public-safety concerns surrounding mopeds and other micro-mobility vehicles operating recklessly on Boston’s streets and sidewalks, a special City Council committee hearing was held to discuss the city’s rules and regulations for these vehicles on Tuesday, July 9, at City Hall.

A number of mopeds are seen parked on Boylston Street, between Clarendon and Dartmouth streets, on the early afternoon of Saturday, July 13.
District 8 City Councilor Sharon Durkan chairs the council’s Planning, Development and Transportation Committee, which, at her request, sponsored the hearing in response to the prevalence of third-party delivery apps, like DoorDash and Uber Eats, whose drivers often rely on alternate modes of transportation, including e-bikes and electric scooters.
The issue with micro-mobility vehicles in the city is a “nuanced one,” noted Councilor Durkan, with the livelihoods of many delivery drivers depending on these vehicles for work. Councilor Durkan said these modes of transportation have a less adverse impact on the environment, compared to traditional four-wheel automobiles. These delivery apps have also greatly benefited the city’s economy in the aftermath of the pandemic, she said, while opening up access to goods and services previously unavailable to the elderly and others stuck at home. Conversely, however, the proliferation of these new one- and two-wheel vehicles has also posed extreme public-safety hazards on city streets and sidewalks. Councilor Durkan underscored how the city remains committed to Vision Zero – its initiative that aims to eliminate fatal and severe traffic crashes in Boston by 2030. But despite this commitment, 3,006 injuries and 10 fatalities were sustained in traffic crashes citywide last year, she noted, many of which involved some combination of pedestrians, bicycles, and motor vehicles. Councilor Durkan suggested looking to other cities for solutions, like New York, with the creation of its Department of Sustainable Delivery, which regulates commercial delivery services that use two and three-wheeled micromobility vehicles.
Meanwhile, Chik-fil-A’s location at 569 Boylston St. in the Back Bay continues to be a constant source of complaints from her constituents, said Councilor Durkan, who added on a recent day, she saw no less than 30 micro-mobility vehicles parked on the sidewalk outside the establishment. She acknowledged the high demand for the restaurant’s delivery food but added that the number of constituent complaints she has received related to this one location has been “staggering.”
“While the city and DoorDash have worked together really collaboratively on that location, there’s obviously still so many challenges,” she said. “I think simply creating curbside space and batching, obviously isn’t solving the problem. We have the mechanisms in the city to remove a license for delivery for a specific location. Those mechanisms and the timing of them are still a little bit obscured to me.” In the meantime, Councilor Durkan implored representatives from both DoorDash and Uber Eats, both on hand for the meeting, to work collaboratively with the city to address ongoing issues with their delivery drivers, including those stemming from Chik-fil-A’s popular Boylston Street location.
“There’s so much more work to do,” she said. “We need more partnership. We need to do better – that’s it.” During her testimony and a statement from the company, DoorDash representative Kate Rumbaugh pledged the company’s commitment to continuing to work with the city on resolving issues with their drivers who use micro-mobility vehicles. About two years ago, DoorDash began encouraging its riders to use two-wheel vehicles in response to the city’s concerns about the abundance of delivery drivers relying on traditional autos clogging the streets, she said. Moreover, Rumbaugh said DoorDash routinely performs background checks of its drivers, including validating their driver’s licenses and driving histories. She also sought to dispel a misconception about drivers sharing accounts by saying the company takes a ‘multi-layered’ approach to ensure this doesn’t happen.
“We’re always looking to do better,” said Rumbaugh, who added that her appearance at the meeting was further evidence of the company’s pledge to work with the city to resolve the acknowledged issues. “We stand by the need and hear the need to do better.” Katie Franger, public affairs manager for Uber, which launched its food-delivery platform, then called ‘UberEats,’ in 2015, also outlined steps her company is now taking to educate its drivers about road safety. She also said the company remains open to suggestions from the city on how to improve its operation. Like DoorDash, Uber Eats (like Uber itself) also takes steps to ensure that drivers aren’t sharing their accounts, said Franger, and the company will permanently disable the accounts of those who violate the rule. She added that Uber’s drivers undergo a multi-layered screening process and background check, and drivers are rescreened on an annual basis. Jascha Franklin-Hodge, the city’s chief of streets, noted while food delivery platforms were essential during the pandemic, they’ve since grown exponentially in cities nationwide, including Boston. With the proliferation of these platforms, he pointed to the myriad ‘negative impacts,’ that have accompanied this trend, such as vehicles frequently double-parked outside some popular fast-food establishments, including those on Newbury Street, Seaport Boulevard, and Huntington Avenue, among other locations. Two-wheel delivery vehicles, including mopeds, have recently become increasingly more commonplace in the city, and are often driven on sidewalks and in crosswalks, putting pedestrians, especially the elderly, at risk, said Franklin-Hodge, “so we must change this.”
Some micro-mobility vehicles aren’t fully classified under state law, said Franklin-Hodge, such as one-wheel motorized vehicles, stand-up scooters, and Class 3 bikes. Traditional bikes aren’t required to be registered either, something he doesn’t expect will change. For motorcycles and mopeds – a classification that applies to most delivery vehicles used in the city – registration is required, however, he said. In response to public-safety concerns, the city has developed an ‘educational flier’ to disseminate the facts surrounding the rules and regulation for operating two-wheel vehicles within its jurisdiction, including that these vehicles must be registered; that helmets must be worn; and that operators of these vehicles must adhere to the regular rules of the road. Enforcement will also be increased in the city, added Franklin-Hodge, which he described as a necessary component to resolving the issues surrounding these vehicles. While the intention here isn’t to penalize those working in the ‘gig economy,’ the city instead aims to hold delivery drivers who disregard the rules of the road personally responsible for their actions, which, according to Franklin-Hodge, is a necessary component in resolving the public-safety issues related to micro-mobility vehicles. Moreover, the city will be working to better manage its curbs by launching a pilot, which will establish a dedicated area on Boylston Street for mopeds and other two-wheel delivery vehicles to help alleviate congestion at the often-busy block between Clarendon and Dartmouth streets, near Chik-fil-A’s Back Bay location.
“Lastly, we’re pushing the delivery companies to be more accountable,” added Franklin-Hodge. To this end, Franklin-Hodge said he and Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox recently sent a letter to several major delivery companies operating in the city pointing to the ongoing public-safety concerns and asking them to take more accountability for their drivers. The letter also asked the companies a number of questions about their business operations. “Their responses were disappointing, to say the least,” said Franklin-Hodge. (One of the letter recipients, DoorDash has announced a new safety initiative in response to the letter and in anticipation of the hearing, said Rumbaugh at the hearing.) Despite its significant size, the food-delivery industry remains unregulated in the Commonwealth, said Franklin-Hodge, so the city is now in discussions with state and elected officials on how to best do so. A starting point, he said, would be to look at how the state already regulates rideshare app services, like Uber and Lyft,. The city is also exploring how to regulate food-delivery services by mandating that delivery vehicles are registered, and that drivers are insured, said Franklin-Hodge.
“This is not a simple issue, but it’s an area where we must act,” he said. “We cannot wait until our streets become even more clogged with delivery vehicles. We cannot sit by when a multi-million business profits by looking the other way as its workforce ignores the rules of the road. Most importantly, we can’t wait until more people are injured or worse. The benefits of food delivery can’t come at the expense of public safety; they cannot come at the expense of people feeling comfortable walking in their neighborhoods.” Councilor Durkan said she was just hearing Franklin-Hodge’s suggestions for first time at the hearing and added she would “like to get in a room and talk about them.” Kristen McCosh, the city’s disability commissioner, said people with disabilities are among the highest populations using city sidewalks, “so they’ve been dealing with this problem for a long time.” The Mayor’s Commission for Persons with Disabilities has heard from the disabled community for years about how dangerous conditions are on city sidewalks, she said, and in response, it has developed the ‘Boston Brakes’ program to help educate drivers and advocate for safety. But despite the relative success of this campaign, enforcement is still also necessary to make the city’s streets safe for everyone, added McCosh.
A longtime advocate for pedestrian safety, District 2 City Councilor Ed Flynn said more police officers are needed to enforce the rules of the road. “Everyone using the roads needs to abide by the rules of the road,” he said. “Boston can no longer be the Wild West, and it’s been like this for a long period of time.” Boston Police Deputy Superintendent Dan Humphreys said they would focus additional shifts on problem areas while looking at the ‘behavior’ of individual who are recklessly operating micro-mobility vehicles.
“We want people to voluntarily comply with the rules, and those that don’t, we’ll focus on them,” he said. “And we’re going to do everything we can to change the climate in some of these areas and restore peace in those neighborhoods.” But out of concern for the safety of others, the Boston Police also has a policy of not giving chase to micro-mobility vehicles that won’t stop for them. “That’s one of the challenges,” said Deputy Superintendent Humphreys.