After multiple months of internal debate and back and forth with third party delivery platforms about how to better regulate their drivers on scooters or bikes, Boston City Council wants to hold companies like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub accountable for unsafe driving.
At an April 2 meeting, the Council voted 11-2 in favor of a law that would require third party delivery platforms receive an operating permit from the city. These permits would require companies to provide insurance coverage for scooters, ebikes, and bikes, and would require the submission of quarterly driver congestion data to the Boston Department of Transportation.
The law will apply to delivery platforms who fill one million orders per year or more.
“For far too long, third-party delivery platforms in Boston have operated as if the rules don’t apply to them,” said District 8 Councilor Sharon Durkan. “Their business models prioritize speed and profits over safety and accountability.”
The measure will next need a signature from Mayor Michelle Wu to go into effect. Discussions regarding the law were chaired by Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata, the chair of the committee on government operations. Wu initially filed the law with the City Council in February after reporting that there had been over 100 complaints filed in 2024 related to mopeds alone.
“This ordinance is an important step toward making app deliveries safer for our city’s pedestrians and drivers… and toward ensuring delivery app drivers have insurance coverage from the large, national companies they work for,” said Wu in a February release.
“Just yesterday I was in the Fenway and that was the top concern at the Red Sox neighborhood meeting,” said Durkan. “You would think the top concern at the Red Sox neighborhood meeting was the fact that opening day was [April 4] … but you know what came up: scooters, being run over, and feeling unsafe on the streets.”
It won’t apply to small businesses with their own delivery drivers, package delivery like UPS and FedEx, or to grocery providers like Instacart. Although Instacart has a partnership with Uber Eats, Coletta Zapata said that they would be exempt because they park in grocery store lots and do not contribute to the same congestion.
The new law would require third-party delivery platforms to receive a permit to operate, and is largely an effort to encourage these platforms to create insurance coverage options for e-bikes, scooters, and other two-wheeled vehicles, which Coletta Zapata said “does not widely exist” in the U.S.
“Uber has [this] coverage in Canada already, so they are not a stranger to this issue in the North American market,” she said. “They have accidental insurance for e-bikes, scooters, bicycles, and on-foot delivery people.”
In order to get the permit, platforms will have to provide proof that they obtained the outlined insurance coverage for two-wheeled drivers and certification that they will comply with the data reporting described in law. If they don’t keep an active permit, it can be revoked, suspended, or subject to nonrenewal.
Speaking in favor of the law at the April 3 meeting were councilors Coletta Zapata, Durkan, and District 2 Councilor Ed Flynn.
Councilor at Large Erin Murphy voted in opposition, saying that “Boston already has comprehensive traffic laws that should be more effectively enforced, rather than introducing additional legislation.”
“While enhancing safety is crucial, the ordinance raises significant concerns regarding its approach and potential unintended consequences,” said Murphy, who also called the practicality of platforms providing insurance “questionable.”
District 3 Councilor John Fitzgerald did not speak on the ordinance at the meeting, but also voted no.
In a March effort to make the City reconsider the now-passed ordinance, DoorDash released a report saying that a third of its Boston drivers deliver on two wheels. They argued that car alternatives help curb carbon emissions, congestion, and are more affordable, and that they could regulate their own drivers without City interference.
Uber spoke out in a statement, threatening to return to only car couriers if the law passed.
“It was just a few years ago that the City of Boston asked Uber to encourage the use of two-wheeled delivery vehicles to decrease the number of cars on the road in response to an increase in demand for food delivery,” Uber added in its statement.
Flynn said he was in favor of the law as long as a previously discussed 15-cent fee on the platforms was not included in the final proposal.
“Residents know that wouldn’t be paid by the multi-billion dollar corporations,” said Flynn.
Coletta Zapata said the fee was not ultimately included because there was no way to codify that the fee would not be passed to consumers or businesses.
Durkan was a proponent of what she called the “modest fee” on delivery providers and expressed some disappointment about it not being included in the law. She called it a partial win for big delivery platforms which have a market share of $235 billion.
Council President Ruthzee Louijeune also voted in favor.
“No legislation is perfect, but I think this moves us in the right direction,” she said.
