David Saltonstall of Central Park Conservancy describes pedicab shakedowns

Yeah, whoever's next, whatever.

You guys can just decide.

Good morning, members of the committee.

My name is David Saltonstall, and I'm Vice President of Government Relations and Policy at the Central Park Conservancy, and thank you for this opportunity.

The Conservancy supports this package of bills to reform the city's pedicab fleet.

Moving oversight to the TLC, requiring meters or timers in every pedicab, and making it possible to weed out bad actors are common sense steps.

But rather than walking through each bill, I want to describe what the current system looks like from our perspective.

Central Park is the city's most visited attraction with more than 40 million visits a year.

And virtually every visitor from out of town is solicited, often aggressively, by a small subset of pedicab operators or their agents within a few blocks of the park.

Not some of them, nearly all of them.

For many, it's confusing, and too often it ends with a sky-high fare that was never made clear.

A family told one price at the outset and charged several times that amount at the end of the ride.

Grand Army Plaza and Columbus Circle were designed as grand entrances to one of the world's most iconic green spaces.

Instead, those areas feel more like a shakedown.

That's the first impression many visitors get of Central Park, and it's a memory they take home.

It reflects on the park, and it reflects on New York.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Pedicabs can be a safe, green, and genuinely enjoyable way to see the park.

What we need is a well-regulated fleet, one that rewards the many honest drivers who are simply trying to make a living, some of whom you've heard from today, and rids the industry of those whose business model depends on exploiting people.

Who don't know better.

A properly regulated fleet under the TLC can also be managed so it has minimal impact on the park's already crowded drives, which are shared by cyclists, runners, and millions of others.

Finally, I do want to recognize the New York Pedicab Alliance, whose members have spoken here today.

I imagine it is a rare event when this body is asked to

regulate an industry when the members of that industry come up and are literally begging you for more reform, for more oversight.

They welcome it because they know it protects their livelihoods as much as it protects the public.

So we urge the council to pass this package in its entirety.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions.