PORT ANGELES — The City Council cleared the path at its Tuesday meeting for a pedicab or horse-drawn carriage business in downtown Port Angeles.
The issue was raised at the June 1 meeting when Port Angeles resident Ming Chang asked the City Council to consider changing its municipal code to allow pedicabs.
The seven-member council voted unanimously to allow nonmotorized, for-hire vehicles within the city.
Chang, who attended the Tuesday meeting, did not speak again to the council but waited through three hours of the meeting to hear the decision.
Council member Max Mania commended Chang’s idea.
“If as a businessman he has even a tenth of the patience he did tonight sitting through this meeting, he’ll be successful,” Mania said.
At the earlier meeting he told the council that the vehicles, which are essentially bicycle taxis, would be a tourism draw and also benefit the environment.
Council member Cherie Kidd said she was excited about the prospect of having the vehicles in town.
“This is a great idea,” she said.
“I’m looking forward to having this service in Port Angeles and looking forward to riding in a pedicab.”
Chang, who said he is not at this time negotiating with any particular company and who has no photographs of his proposed vehicles, said at the previous meeting he hopes to have a pedicab business up and running by the end of summer.
“It is just something I’m considering right now,” he said after the Tuesday meeting.
“I am very happy about their decision.”
He said he wasn’t yet ready to elaborate further.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
