Breezecab - A Bicycle Taxi, Motown Style!

May 19, 2007 9:05 AM

Pedicabs are a common sight all over. In the pedicab business, there can be success, personal enlightment, and failure. Pedicabs come in countless styles. This style is sleek and modern, and this man is trying to bring them to Detroit (warning, only the sparse main page is finished). Here is the mandatory YouTube video.
posted by The Deej (13 comments total)

We've had a pretty reasonable infestation of these dudes in downtown Orlando for a long while now. Never really thought much of it, till I happened to discover the 'hive' a few weeks back on an early Saturday night. It looks like the drivers supply their own bikes, with this long row of seat hitches just lining the sidewalk waiting for their driver. I should've stopped and asked the owner what kind of percentage he ran.

"HEY BUDDY... wanna lift???"
posted by cavalier at 9:10 AM on May 19, 2007

In recent news: Overriding Veto, Council Limits Pedicabs to 325 in New York.
posted by ericb at 9:11 AM on May 19, 2007

Pedicabs Steer a Hard Road -- "The human-powered cabs are familiar sights in big cities, despite regulations and insurance woes that can make this business a very rough ride."
posted by ericb at 9:12 AM on May 19, 2007

Some guys I know here in Raleigh just started up a pedicab business. And, hey, lookie here, Mefi's very own mediareport is enjoying a ride through downtown Raleigh.
posted by NoMich at 9:48 AM on May 19, 2007

Whoops! Goodbye law school, hello pedicab pilotry.
posted by grobstein at 10:05 AM on May 19, 2007

Hook up a rickshaw to something like this and you could have a mani-pedicab.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:05 AM on May 19, 2007

Whoops! Goodbye law school, hello pedicab pilotry.
posted by grobstein

But are you street enough to join the Detroit crew?
posted by The Deej at 10:27 AM on May 19, 2007

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if it was worthwhile to bike around in that thing just for the advertising rates.
posted by delmoi at 10:33 AM on May 19, 2007

But are you street enough to join the Detroit crew?

Well, no, almost certainly not.
posted by grobstein at 10:44 AM on May 19, 2007

Man, do I hate these things. (Okay, disclosure time: I drove a cab for three year. Technically these guys (who first appeared a few years back in Boston) were competition, although cabbies aren't generally interested in short fares that pedicabs handle.) Mostly I disliked how they disrupted traffic and (in my opinion) gave a nice third-world flavor to an otherwise high-tech city. The streets of Boston are barely able to handle cars & bikes, let alone these ridiculous rickshaws. I can't imagine who enjoys being dragged around the dirty streets of a city, smelling the exhaust and pollution, exposed to serious injury from even a very low-impact collision.

If people want to make a difference in their travel habits, take the public transportation. Or get into the booming hybrid cab business. Keep these wheeled death-traps the hell off my streets!
posted by Banky_Edwards at 10:47 AM on May 19, 2007

Auto-rickshaws are the only way to travel.
posted by chunking express at 1:18 PM on May 19, 2007

The Deej: Now, this is the first I have read anything by hadjiboy (that I can recall)

Self-Link
posted by hadjiboy at 4:19 PM on May 19, 2007

Ahhhh, the implication that I read your post, thus leading to this post. Very suspicious, eh?

But no. This day in MeFi is full of odd coincidences! Despite having a common link with dhartung's comment in your thread at 7:32, I actually started this post because I found the concept of pedicabs working in Detroit to be improbable and amusing. The video was really the jumping off point, even though I placed it as the last link as a sort of punchline. The other links I found in my supporting searches.

But (to quote loquacious), well played!
posted by The Deej at 4:36 PM on May 19, 2007