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Bike messengers’ ranks shrinking
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| San Francisco Examiner, October 10, 2005 By Josh Wein A sagging economy and advances in communication have slashed San Francisco’s working bike messenger population to about half of what it was just five years ago, although those who remain say their tight-knit community continues to thrive. In 1998, the San Francisco Bike Messenger Association estimated more than 400 messengers were pedaling around downtown San Francisco. Now that number has dropped below 200 — some say 150. New technologies have threatened the courier business for years. In the 1980s, the introduction of the fax machine into office life was taken as a sign of the industry’s imminent collapse. “Then, in the ’90s, it was e-mail,” said Lon Cook, executive director of the San Francisco Bike Messenger Association. “It still hasn’t happened.” While bike messengers for decades have been a fixture on downtown streets, hand-delivering sensitive legal documents, memos, small parcels and other materials, electronic delivery of documents has chipped away at the bread and butter of a bike messenger’s business. Existing companies have survived an industrywide consolidation trend by specializing in a single type of delivery, such as legal documents or printed graphics, and employing far fewer riders than they would have just a few years ago. Despite their shrinking numbers, bike messengers insist their culture is as strong as ever. Many are covered in tattoos. Others use their income from deliveries to supplement careers in fine art and music. Last week, the Bicycle Film Festival showed to sold-out audiences in The City. Monday, the SFBMA celebrated San Francisco Bike Messengers Day with a reception and awards ceremony at “the Wall” on the corner of Sansome and Sutter streets — a popular bike messenger hangout for years. “Freeway,” a bike messenger for the past nine years, said the smaller number of riders has not changed the bike messenger’s culture. “Not at all,” he said. “No matter how many things you change, you don’t ever change the way the bike messengers live or how we act.” But others say the culture is getting older. As jobs become harder to come by, riders are holding onto them for longer periods of time. These days, SFBMA members show up at events with their young children in tow. San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who presented the group with a framed resolution naming Oct. 10 Bike Messenger Day, said the bike messengers are an important part of the fabric of downtown life. “It’s a subculture that’s not going away,” he said. |
