The driver of a bicycle cab was Tasered twice by police, the latest run-in in an escalating battle between the drivers of rickshaw-style pedicabs and the U.S. Park Service. The driver was trying to pick up a rider near the National Air and Space Museum, witnesses said, when he was stopped by the officer in front of hundreds of tourists.
“I hope this didn’t shatter any illusions of freedom,” said Tyler Clark, a pedicab driver and George Washington University Law School student who witnessed the incident.
The city’s pedicabs have been running into trouble this summer near the place many of their riders want to visit: the National Mall. Drivers of the pedal-powered vehicles say they are now constantly getting harassed by the U.S. Park Police after operating for about five years without serious trouble. Some have gotten tickets for failing to secure their bikes, others have just been shooed away. One driver, Sarah Roberts, a 22-year-old student at Hampshire College, was arrested on June 14 when she said she declined to provide her ID when parked outside the Museum of American History.
“This is much worse this year,” said Robert Hart, a pedicab operator in his third season. “This is at a much greater scale, virtually daily at this point.”
U.S. Park Police did not return multiple calls for comment. But Bill Line, a National Park Service spokesman, said the pedicabs are engaged in illegal activity when they come onto park service property because they aren’t allowed to make commercial transactions on the National Mall or the park service property around it — including the roads.
“The pedicabs are obviously doing much more than driving a bike,” he said. “The pedicabs are obviously out at the National Mall to make cold hard American cash.”
The bikes aren’t safe, he said. Furthermore, the Tourmobile bus service has an exclusive year-to-year contract to provide transportation services to the Mall. “We cannot allow these pedicabs to pick up and drop off because that would breach the contract with the Tourmobile,” he said.
That contract has caused problems for other entities besides pedicabs. The D.C. Circulator had a route around the Mall but wasn’t allowed to operate on Madison or Jefferson avenues. Traveling one block away, on Constitution and Independence avenues, it had low ridership and the city decided to cut the line this spring.
Martin Rahmani, who owns 30 pedicabs under Capitol Pedicabs, said his company isn’t trying to take away business from Tourmobile.
“We’re trying to do something totally different,” Rahmani said. “We’re new, we’re green, we’re environmentally friendly.”
His cabs work across the city, not just the park service property. He said his company is legal, licensed in D.C., pays taxes, carries insurance and has the latest safety features including seat belts and hydraulic brakes.
“We want to get to the table and find a solution that works for everybody,” Rahmani said.
