Bikes Emerge as a Viable Alternative for Urban Freight

It may be hard to image fleets of cargo bikes replacing the large polluting trucks that tear up our city streets. But a European Union project estimates that the majority of freight in 322 cities studied could be moved by cargo bike.

1 minute read

October 8, 2013, 1:00 PM PDT

By Jonathan Nettler @nettsj


Man riding bike in New York with City Harvest cargo compartment attached

CityHarvestNY / Wikimedia Commons

"The European Union is running a three-year project (ending next year) to try to move cities' freight deliveries from heavy, road-ripping, and dangerous and polluting freight trucks to lower-impact cargo bikes and delivery trikes," reports April Streeter. "And the data coming in from 322 European cities seems to indicate that at least half of freight deliveries could be transferred to bike delivery!"

In addition to reducing congestion and improving street safety, "[m]oving freight delivery to bike is also good news for city air quality and climate change control - while freight moving comprises only about 15 percent of all transport trips in a city, it makes up 30% of transport's energy consumption."

Tuesday, October 8, 2013 in Treehugger

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