Peter McCormack had an idea for cheap, healthy transportation. Now he’s ... : Running With It

Eric Reese scans the bustling parking lot at the Irvine Spectrum, seeking his first customers of the evening.

“You folks need a ride?” he asks.

Reese, 24, is pulling a rickshaw, the lowest-tech taxi in the world. It is an archaic form of foot-drawn transportation more closely identified with India, China and Indonesia than the high-tech entertainment centers of Southern California.

But, in the same way bits and pieces of other cultural adaptations have worked their way into lives here, the rickshaw has found a niche. The hand-pulled carts turn out to be a fairly efficient way to make short trips from, say, a remote parking space to the ticket booth.

And rickshaws are finding takers in destinations ranging from the San Diego Zoo to Universal Studios in Los Angeles.

The carts are typically being drawn by strong young people like Reese--he is a Marine KC 130 flight mechanic stationed at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station--who want to earn extra money and get a good workout.

Reese’s first customers, Cathleen Madrid, 18, and Richard Parayno, 20, of Aliso Viejo seem a bit apprehensive about riding in a cart pulled by a man. But after shoulders are shrugged, they agree to take a ride.

His passengers settled, Reese runs along at an even pace as he maneuvers the cart through a maze of sport-utility vehicles and luxury cars and to the curb of the Edwards Cinema 21.

His payment is in tips--an average of $5 a ride.

“It’s a good way to earn a couple bucks, hang out with the guys and have a little fun while I’m doing it,” says Reese, who was working alongside two Marine buddies and Peter McCormack on a recent evening.

It is McCormack, 30, who imported rickshaws to Southern California.

“Rickshaws are my passion,” explains McCormack, who started pulling them nine years ago in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He brought a handful of the vehicles to San Diego two years ago from Canada, where his partner, Douglas Thiessen, is based.

Since its start in San Diego, the company has grown to a fleet of two dozen deployed throughout Southern California. In the peak season, it has a crew of 100 pullers. While traditional rickshaws are made of wood, these are of stainless steel and boat canvas.

Besides managing the business, McCormack still pulls his share of riders.

“On a good day we do between 12 and 15 miles,” he says.

McCormack believes the company, Green Limousine Inc., has grown mostly because he views both puller and rider as customers--both must get something out of the experience.

And sometimes that requires a stretch.

“Some of the customers feel guilty about riding,” says Jeff Rehnberg, 45, a marathon runner from Rosarito, Mexico, who pulls a rickshaw at the San Diego Zoo. “If you’re into exercise, then it’s a totally different perception. Everyone doing this is having fun at it.”

Rickshaws haven’t always been viewed as a novelty. Nor as a form of entertainment, or a way to get a workout.

In a land of latest-model cars, designer clothing and elective plastic surgery, the rickshaw stands out, especially to those familiar with its history.

The hand-pulled carts have long been a controversial form of transportation because they are powered by humans--not animals or mechanical means. Many governments in the Asian nations where their use was once widespread have adopted policies banning or limiting their use. Today, bicycle-powered and motorized rickshaws are common.

Calcutta is the last major city in India to be home to a fleet of the human-powered conveyances. In 1997, an attempt was made to ban the “rickies”--there are 20,000 in the city--but the law was rescinded before it could be put into effect. The ban was protested by the rickshaw pullers but supported by those who wanted to see the pace of city traffic--it averages 5 miles an hour--speeded up.

Although the job of wallah, as the pullers are called in India, is one many do not want to give up, it takes a high physical toll. Many wallahs, their bodies worn down by the hard labor, die before they reach age 40.

It is the efficiency of the rickshaw that has kept it in use in Calcutta. And while the economics and realities of daily life here could not be more different, it is also efficiency that is giving the carts a foothold in Southern California.

In San Diego, tourists take a leisurely spin around Balboa Park or the zoo in a rickshaw. In Carlsbad, the Plaza Camino Real mall has contracted to have rickshaws help shoppers and their packages get around. Visitors at Universal Studios can take a trip from shop to shop, to their cars or sightseeing.

“I see all these sights while I’m traveling around that rickshaws would work at,” says McCormack, who’d like to expand operations to Sea World, the Pond of Anaheim and Irvine Meadows. “We are on the cutting edge of it because nobody else is doing it.”

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Back at the Irvine Spectrum, as the rickshaw pullers circle the parking lot for potential passengers, they get second looks from passersby.

“Do you go on the freeway?” one asks.

“Is this for real?” asks a San Dimas man who last saw rickshaws in Asia.

“What’s that thing called again?” another asks. “A rickter? A rickster?”

As the night slips away, what was once a light sheet of rain is now a blanket. Reese spends 20 minutes pulling a man who has lost his car in the parking lot.

“I’ve never seen so many dark green Lexuses in my life,” Reese says. “It looks like a dealership out there.”

Reese and co-pullers Sam Wayne, 21, and Steve Dunn, 24, also stationed at El Toro, remain good-spirited and full of energy despite the poor weather. Still, their careers as rickshaw pullers may be short-lived. The Marines were on standby alert for possible duty in the Persian Gulf.

For a variety of lesser reasons--from sore feet to changes in class schedules--there is high turnover among rickshaw pullers. But, for many who have given it a try, it has been an experience to remember.

“You’re a little sore when you go to sleep, but you feel good in the morning,” Dunn says.

Separate from the novelty, economics and politics of the rickshaw, it makes some otherwise unnoticeable things apparent:

“As the evening wears on,” Reese says, “you notice a slight hill in the parking lot.”