In Portland, Oregon (USA), entrepreneur Franklin Jones, the owner of B-Line Sustainable Urban Delivery, has embraced the future of urban transport. Never mind that the future closely resembles early 20th-Century Britain. BBC reports on the strong growth of cargo bikes in urban freight.
BCC reports: ‘From Portland, Seattle and Vancouver to Toronto, Boston and New York and points in between, urban businesses and residents are discovering what European and Asian city-dwellers have known for years: cargo bikes make sense, whether used to deliver goods through traffic-choked streets, lug kids to a park or buy groceries’.
With its low initial cost of investment, zero emissions, relative nimbleness and minimal operating costs, there is much to commend. DHL recently hopped aboard. By replacing 33 trucks with 33 cargo bikes in the Netherlands, DHL estimates it is saving about Euro 550.000 annually and reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by 152 metric tonnes annually, the ECLF notes. Rival UPS has begun testing its own electric-assisted delivery bikes in a few European cities.
Read the full article here.