Mezanur Rahman is sitting in the cold rain on Queen Street, nearly a third of the way through his daily 12-hour shift, waiting for his phone to ding.
He hopes to make at least $100 delivering food today, to return home safe and to send some money to his family in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Long-term, he says, he wants to escape this life: 84 hours of work a week numbs the mind and warps the body.
Rahman sits on the type of vehicle that's become synonymous with food-delivery drivers in Toronto: an electric moped. Couriers rely on e-mopeds for several reasons: they're relatively affordable, there's no licence required to drive one, and they can cleave through a city often choked by traffic, sometimes by slipping into places they don't belong, such as protected bike lanes and sidewalks.
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The vehicles are part a wave of "micromobility" that has washed over Toronto's streets. They are the most visible and perhaps most striking example of the lightweight electric vehicles, such as e-bikes and e-scooters, that have become a defining feature of our downtown landscape. Their proliferation has drawn dismay from those who blame the vehicles for a spike in injuries, and from others, including some cyclists, who say they're being crowded in what are meant to be among their few safe spaces.
Observers, including some food-delivery drivers, say every level of government has been caught flat-footed by these vehicles they don't know how to regulate.
For some, the micromobility wave is an annoyance. For others, it's a daily convenience or work routine, and the reality of modern commuting. But questions about risk loom. Between 2020 and 2024, annual electric bike-related hospitalizations at St. Michael's Hospital rose 240 per cent.
Delivery workers say the apps they work for bear some of the responsibility for indirectly punishing slow, safe riding. The companies say they have taken measures to mitigate risky driving practices.
"There are rush hours -- you have to go fast to try to make money," said Rahman. "Some people don't care about anything, they don't see red lights, they don't see turns, they're rushing."
Life in the 'chaotic' bike lane
Increasingly, in the eyes, of Michael Longfield, Toronto bike lanes are turning into "chaotic environments."
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E-bikes whizzing by cyclists is a daily sight. Longfield, executive director of Cycle Toronto, says he's been knocked to the ground by one.
"I see it as a failure at the federal and provincial level to regulate the types of vehicles allowed for import into this country and come up with consistently clear rules," he says. (Most e-bikes are brought in from Asia or assembled in Canada with imported parts.)
"The city of Toronto is left holding the bag, trying to make this all work within this very limited space that we're all competing for."
Cordoning off a new stretch of road for vehicles like electric mopeds -- too powerful for bike lanes but not quick enough to contest with cars -- is probably impossible in Toronto at this time, Longfield says, as there's already fighting over the limited road space we have.
But he thinks the city should consider widening cycle paths, if it can, to make passing safer.
The city has tried to ban some micromobility devices for safety reasons.
E-scooters, whose riders stand on what looks like a skateboard and hold a handlebar, are illegal, in part because they are incompatible with the way Toronto streets are laid out, the city says.
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"The gauge of tires on e-scooters is very problematic in terms of getting those tires caught (on streetcar tracks)," Barbara Gray, Toronto's head of transportation services, told city council this month. "They travel quickly, they're a little unstable and they're challenging on our roads."
But there is little local police and lawmakers can do to get e-scooters off the street. Police have no authority to seize the devices and it is legal to sell them and ride them on private property. Hospitalizations related to the device have skyrocketed 600 per cent from 2020 to 2024.
'This is a dangerous job'
Food courier Jennifer Scott, who started delivering in 2017 before e-bikes became so common, still rides a manual bicycle because she's afraid if she upgraded it might be stolen.
As independent contractors, deliverers have to pay for their own transportation, and Scott, who is also the president of advocacy group Gig Workers United, says many of her peers rent e-bikes for work. They have been left destitute after thefts.
Scott says e-mopeds are appealing because they're quicker, easier on the body and come with good storage. Bike lanes are appealing because they bypass traffic.
This is important, Scott adds, because there is tremendous pressure on couriers to work quickly -- not only because more deliveries means more money, but because they can be punished for slowing down.
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"Workers have gotten messages telling them they took too long to get to the restaurant, and if they do it again they'll be deactivated," says Scott. "You'll also receive push notifications in the app, in real-time while you're trying to deliver, telling you you're taking too long."
Scott says most of her colleagues earn less than $10 an hour on average. To make enough to survive, they work around the clock, she adds.
"This is a dangerous job," Scott says. "I know folks who worry they won't come home at the end of the day."
'Notorious for going on the sidewalk'
Policymakers and law enforcement made an effort this summer to reach food couriers.
"E-bikers in the food industry are notorious for going on the sidewalk," says Matt Moyer, acting superintendent of Toronto police's traffic unit. "These are people trying to make a living, and I sympathize ... but we just need them to be a little bit more up to speed in terms of what they can and can't do."
A three-week micromobility safety blitz by police yielded hundreds of traffic tickets, Moyer says, and many more educational conversations. As of Oct. 10, officers have issued 1,138 tickets related to e-bike, e-scooter and bicycle users in 2025.
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Moyer says he doesn't want to take his "foot off the gas" and plans to "push my chief to give me the green light to move ahead and do this again," ideally before Christmas.
But advocates say the root of the problem isn't that delivery drivers don't know the rules, it's that the apps they work for incentivize speeding and distracted driving. Using a mobile phone while riding "significantly elevates crash risk," according to a 2023 study by academics in Vietnam. According to another Vietnamese study from the year before, "food delivery riders are at higher risk of traffic crashes due to the demanding nature of their work." This is because of "time pressure to deliver food promptly, often navigating through congested urban areas and adverse weather conditions."
The food delivery companies "have a responsibility when they engage people in employment," Moyers says.
Charissa Iogna, senior project manager in the city's transportation services division, says her team reached out to SkipTheDishes, DoorDash and Uber and got them to spread the city's "key messages" on road safety to couriers through newsletters.
"Uber actually agreed to put a regular spot on their newsletter that says 'Please remember to follow the rules as outlined by Toronto Municipal Code,' and then links to our website as well," she says.
Earlier this month, council voted to continue public education campaigns.
'A game of whack-a-mole'
Food delivery companies say they have taken steps to try to make couriers safer.
Uber told the Star it improved its bike-specific navigation and has settings that allow some notifications to be read aloud. DoorDash says when a "Dasher" is out on delivery, it "drastically" limits notifications. It also says there is "no incentive" for deliverers to arrive early. SkipTheDishes did not respond to an inquiry from the Star.
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Still many are not convinced the system is working as it should.
"These delivery apps have built a business model that pushes costs and risk onto everyone else," says Aaron Binder, director of communications for the Better Way Alliance, a group of progressive business owners looking to build what they say would be a more ethical delivery alternative in Ottawa. He also works at a company that sells electric scooters.
There's a cost to that quick-delivered dinner at your door, he says.
"What looks like convenience is really a system that depends on low wages and unstable work. At the street level, you see it play out as pressure -- couriers rushing to meet unrealistic timelines and end up riding or driving dangerously so they're not penalized."
Thorben Wieditz, organizer and researcher with advocacy group Ridefair Toronto, says the city should have advocated for delivery companies to reform their practices, instead of blaming couriers.
"We need regulations that actually force platforms to follow the rules," he says. "Otherwise, we end up playing a game of whack-a-mole, which is highly ineffective, resource-intensive, and allows platforms to avoid accountability."
Back on a rain-slicked Queen Street, Rahman's 12-hour day of zipping up and down the streets on his burgundy moped continues.
For him and for others, the challenges of navigating Toronto's evolving cityscape and its growing array of vehicles are deadly serious.
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"I have a friend, he was in a big accident last year," says Rahman. "A police car hit him. His neck is broken, everything is broken."
"He can't work, he's still in bed."
With files from Amarachi Amadike