Manhattan -With gas prices at a record high and environmental awareness growing, bike use is on the rise in the city. Since 2000, the number of riders has increased 75 percent, according to the city Department of Transportation.
Some new businesses are popping up to help meet the demand. Meet the self-proclaimed “Drug Dealer of Bikes” — a bus driver whose side business is also in transportation. Meanwhile, the folks at Recycle a Bicycle in the East Village are taking donated bikes, fixing and selling them, with profits going toward the group’s education programs.
Mercedes Herman, a registered nurse with nearly four decades of experience, can retire in 2010 but was planning to keep working for several more years at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan. But possible recession-driven changes to her employer-funded pension plan have her rethinking her future.
The potential retirement of Herman and hundreds like her, spurred by a desire to protect a higher pension payout, could diminish the ranks of an already overstretched workforce.