Your Source for NPR News & Music

Pedicabs Cash In On Inauguration Traffic

Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And we're sticking with the Inauguration for our last word in business. That word is transportainment. It comes from a pedicab driver who talked to WTOP radio here in Washington, D.C.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Pedicabs, if you've never seen them, are those rickshaw-type vehicles. They're kind of, you know, half-bicycle, half-taxi. You kick back, while somebody pedals you around. With huge crowds expected, dozens of pedicab drivers have come to Washington to take advantage of the president's swearing-in.

MONTAGNE: Mike Kowalczyk is from Newport, Rhode Island, and he told the radio station he's a little worried about directions. He said he got lost his first night in the nation's capital. I think I got behind him, actually.

(LAUGHTER)

MONTAGNE: You have to swerve around these guys now. He spent a half-hour trying to find U Street, and never found it.

INSKEEP: There's an alphabet. The streets are alphabetical in Washington. Go above T. But Kowalczyk says getting lost and meeting new people is what makes the experience special, an adventure. That's transportainment.

MONTAGNE: And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

INSKEEP: And I'm Steve Inskeep. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Related Stories
  1. Texas charging another large group of migrants with “riot participation”
  2. El Pasoans catch glimpse of solar eclipse
  3. Texas criminally charges more than 200 migrants involved in alleged “riot” at the border
  4. Lebanese migrant allegedly tied to terrorist group appears in federal court with a black eye