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Street Vendors Say Citi Bike Stations Will Put Them Out Of Business
By
Lauren Evans
Published Apr 25, 2013
Modified Apr 25, 2013
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By
Lauren Evans
Published Apr 25, 2013
Modified Apr 25, 2013
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Lower Manhattan street vendors today became the latest addition to a growing list of Citi Bike detractors, claiming that racks installed on the corner of Liberty Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan have displaced their food carts and are threatening their livelihoods.
A group of nearly two dozen vendors gathered today at the edge of the plaza in front of Brown Brothers Harriman—just across from Zucotti Park—to protest what they consider a sudden and hostile takeover by Citi Bike racks, which overnight appeared squarely on the space in which they usually hawk lunch to the the area's many office dwellers.
"On Friday we leave, and it was still OK," said Doris Yao, who has sold dumplings and noodles in the plaza for the past three years. "On Monday when we came in, suddenly everything was occupied."
Yao said she's since moved her truck to the other side of the building, where it sits now on Church Street with a handful of others. She worries, though, that her regular customers won't be able to find her, and besides, she's not sure she'll be allowed to stay there, anyway. "We’re still open, but losing money," she said, adding that her losses have so far totaled a few hundred dollars a day. "We have families to support."
Archana Dittakavi, a staff attorney for the Street Vendor Project, said that though the DOT held several public meetings to discuss the rack's locations, mobile vendors were largely left out of the conversation.
"Street vendors are supportive of initiatives like the bike share program, but we think that [the rack] could have been placed in a way where people aren’t going to be out of work as a result," she said. Though Dittakavi said she hopes customers are able to follow the vendors to a new location, she worries that they simply won't.
"New Yorkers are busy, and they might not have the time to look around," she said. "These venues are not exactly the ones that have Twitter accounts to tell people where they are."
According to the DOT, the station—which sits on private property—was specifically requested by the owner. Furthermore, the agency maintains that outreach efforts were made in earnest.
"NYCDOT held nine public meetings and workshops with Manhattan Community Board 1 to plan the bike share network from October 2011 to February 2013 as well as dozens of additional meetings and demonstrations with elected officials, local BIDs, neighborhood and building associations and members of the public," a spokesperson for the agency said. "These are in addition to phone calls and conversions with groups and individuals in the area over the last two years and ongoing. Many of these were announced and/or covered in local press. Bike share site maps were made public on-line in May 2012 and also widely reported on."
Several lunch-goers, waiting in line at a row of food trucks along Broadway, said they didn't think they'd have a problem finding their favorite carts if they were moved around the corner. Russ Beck, who works in the neighborhood, said he empathizes with the vendors, but said he felt confident that people would make the effort to relocate them following the move.
"Downtown, you have to wander for food anyway," he said. "It's not like anything’s necessarily convenient—you have to walk around for it. If you work here, you know what you like and you go find it."
But Dittakavi said the solution will likely not be so simple as moving down the road.
“What people don’t really know is how few streets are allowed for vendors,” she said. "It’s not always going to be possible to move around the corner. Restricted streets are more common than open streets."
Tagged
bike share
citibike
lower manhattan
street vendors
original
Lauren Evans
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