A 23-minute ride for $3.52: Boston’s food delivery drivers are getting squeezed from all sides - The Boston Globe (2024)

This area outside Chick-fil-A is one of many hot spots around the Boston region where drivers have started gathering, often grouped by their home countries — Dominicans in one area, Haitians in another — to satisfy residents’ seemingly insatiable appetite for takeout.

Food delivery by two-wheeled motorized vehicles is a growing phenomenon in Boston and other cities like New York and Washington, D.C., largely carried out by a growing migrant population. The faster drivers go, the more money they stand to make, and it’s led to a rising tide of complaints: mopeds going the wrong way in bike lanes, running red lights, weaving between cars, narrowly avoiding pedestrians on sidewalks.

Delivery drivers, too, sense the growing tension.

“There’s many people who don’t want to see us,” said an Uber Eats driver, who is from the Dominican Republic and goes by the nickname “Flaca.” (The Globe is not fully identifying drivers to avoid affecting their employment or, for some, pending immigration cases.)

People in cars have cursed at her, she said in Spanish, flipped her off and cut her off in traffic.

“If we [migrants] all go home tomorrow, then who will deliver the food?” said Jeandry, a Dominican DoorDash driver. “Gringos don’t work as delivery drivers.”

Food delivery services exploded during the pandemic, and Copley Square became a hot spot when Chick-fil-A opened on Boylston in 2021. In an attempt to stop double-parked delivery cars from clogging the streets, the city created food pickup zones around the city, including removing parking meters for nearly a block in front of Chick-fil-A, and urged delivery companies to promote pickups by two-wheeled vehicles.

But this led to a whole new problem: throngs of moped drivers zipping between cars and down sidewalks.

Earlier this month, Boston officials issued a warning to DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub about their “concerning lack of oversight and care in regard to public safety” and noted the Boston Police Department would be stepping up enforcement. The same day, State Police impounded 14 mopeds and scooters in the Fenway area that were being operated by unlicensed drivers or were improperly registered.

The companies told the Globe that safety is a priority and reports of unsafe driving are addressed, but enforcement is up to the police.

The attention being paid to these drivers is shining a light on a food delivery system that relies on low-wage workers with few job protections trying to get by in one of the most expensive cities in the country. The delivery companies aren’t regulated by the state, as ride-hailing companies are, and they classify drivers as independent contractors, making it difficult to hold companies accountable for drivers’ actions.

The incentive to speed adds additional pressure. If DoorDash drivers don’t make enough deliveries on time, for instance, their ratings may drop, meaning they could get fewer orders or even have their accounts closed. For drivers with limited English or no formal education, there are few other job options. Blasting through red lights and down sidewalks is a way to beat the clock — and make a living.

Ultimately, said Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Boston’s chief of streets, it’s the system that needs to change.

“It is very difficult to do the job, if not impossible to do the job, in the way that the system expects, without breaking the law,” he said. “You have operators in an exploitative labor environment where they are given all the wrong incentives.”

It’s unclear how many drivers are working in Boston, or how many deliveries they’re making, city officials said, because the companies aren’t required to provide this data. But numbers are clearly rising. Between 2019 and 2021, the numbers of deliveries in Massachusetts more than doubled, according to estimates from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Between 2021 and 2023, deliveries increased 42 percent, according to a study funded by a coalition pushing to enshrine gig drivers as independent contractors.

But the work is far from steady. On a good day, drivers said, they can make upwards of $200. But when demand is low, they can make far less. To make up the difference, many work 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

On a recent 2-mile Uber Eats delivery from Chick-fil-A to the Financial District, the driver made $2.39, pre-tip, on a $43.46 order.

There’s a lot riding on these low wages. In addition to paying for rent and food, some drivers are paying back the cost of their trip to the United States or sending money home. Some don’t have work permits or registered vehicles and live with the fear of getting caught or having their vehicle impounded.

One misstep could mean the loss of their livelihood, or home.

Andres, a DoorDash driver, had his $1,700 moped stolen last month and used all his savings to make a down payment on another. This meant he had no money to pay for the room he was renting, and he wound up in a shelter in Roxbury.

“That’s my livelihood,” he said in Spanish, of the stolen vehicle. “I was left with nothing.”

Andres was a delivery driver at home in Colombia and came to the United States a year ago to make more money to care for his ailing mother. He doesn’t have a work permit and so, to get around that, he borrows another person’s account in exchange for a 20 percent cut of his earnings. On a recent day, he made just $17.

“Tu no sabes cuanta gente depende de esos dolaritos,” he said: “You don’t know how many [drivers] depend on those few dollars.”

Drivers must have valid government IDs or Social Security numbers and pass background checks, the companies said. Account sharing is not allowed. To combat this, some companies require periodic identity reverification via selfies.

In Massachusetts, drivers who use mopeds with 50-cubic-centimeter engines — considered motorized bicycles and often referred to as scooters — are required to pay a $40 registration fee and display license plates. Insurance isn’t required, and use of the bicycle lane is allowed. (Vehicles with bigger engines that can exceed 30 miles per hour have more stringent requirements.)

DoorDash provides third-party auto liability insurance for drivers involved in accidents while actively making deliveries, but drivers may be liable for damages or injuries to other parties. The city said it would support the state reevaluating insurance requirements for moped drivers.

Incidents involving mopeds and scooters have risen sharply, according to the Boston Police Department. The 157 crashes reported in the first five months of the year is more than double the number during the same period last year, and nearly six times what it was in 2019.

Following the city’s request for more two-wheeled deliveries, the number of motorized bikes picking up DoorDash deliveries in the busiest areas in the Back Bay, including Chick-fil-A, tripled between the fall of 2022 and early 2024, the company said.

A new parking area for 20 to 30 motorized bikes is being added at Chick-fil-A to alleviate crowded sidewalks, curbs, and parking spots, Franklin-Hodge said. Ideally, he said, state legislators will create regulations for food delivery companies requiring them to submit data on drivers and deliveries, monitor driver safety, and take greater responsibility for the impact of their services. Currently, he said: “It is the wild west.”

“You should not be able to have a business that revolves around motorized vehicles wherein a large portion of your workforce is not properly licensed and operating vehicles that are not properly registered,” Franklin-Hodge said.

Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association, blasted the city’s “laissez-faire” approach to fixing what she sees as a public health problem. It’s important for immigrants to be able to make a living in Boston, she said, but the situation has become treacherous.

“I’ve seen moms with strollers trying to negotiate sort of running the gantlet between food delivery scooters,” she said.

“It’s lawlessness and chaos on the streets, it really is,” said Patrick Lyons, who owns a number of restaurants and entertainment venues around Boston. “Somebody will get killed by one of these things or somebody will get maimed. … It’s not if, it’s when.”

Flaca, one of the few female delivery drivers, said she’s had several accidents. Most recently, a car backed up and hit her unregistered moped, damaging the vehicle. Rather than risk a run-in with police, she left.

Tyler Longmire, 40, lives near Fenway Park in a large apartment complex on Boylston Street. In the span of a few days earlier this year, he said, he was almost hit by a food delivery moped in a pedestrian crosswalk on Commonwealth Avenue and had to pull his parents out of the path of a driver speeding down the sidewalk.

Longmire has become so concerned, he fired off letters to the city and state legislators. But he recognizes that drivers are trying to hustle so they can survive, and that the sheer number of food deliveries is adding to the problem.

“A huge part of this could be solved by people just not being lazy and walking a couple of blocks to pick up their food,” he said.

In South American and Caribbean countries, “everyone has a moped,” said Gladys Vega, executive director of the Chelsea social services organization La Colaborativa: “It’s a way of making ends meet.”

For new arrivals to the United States, getting a moped and signing up for a food delivery app is a quick, affordable, accessible way to get a “fast check in their pockets,” she said. With few protections or benefits, it’s not sustainable long term, she said, but often, “It’s the only job they’re going to find.”

Another driver said police took his moped away after he ran a red light and discovered he was unlicensed and unregistered. Assuming he would get in trouble and have to pay a large fine, he didn’t bother trying to get it back and started saving up for another one.

Regardless of how much drivers make, they say, it’s never enough. Many came to the US looking for a better life — and most of those rushing around the city delivering chicken sandwiches and bubble tea are still out there looking for it.

“No job is good,” said William, 25, in Spanish, who often waits in Downtown Crossing when deliveries get slow. “But we have to work.”

The crackdown on individual drivers’ actions is threatening everyone’s livelihoods, he said: “For one [mistake], we all pay.”

Katie Johnston can be reached at katie.johnston@globe.com. Follow her @ktkjohnston. Esmy Jimenez can be reached at esmy.jimenez@globe.com. Follow her @esmyjimenez.