pwa wrote:Vorpal wrote:I don't see why 90% of deliveries can't be made that way, and exceptions made only for items that are too large for cargo bikes.
Our nearest Tesco, where their delivery vehicles come from, is about four miles and a couple of hills away, and vans coming from there deliver to Bridgend and the neighbouring towns of Porthcawl, Pencoed and Maesteg. One of our neighbours has Tesco deliveries and at a guess he has about ten trays delivered. A cargo bike is not going to replace that service.
People getting deliveries by Transit tend to buy in sufficient bulk to make the delivery charge less of an issue: if it costs less to get 10 trays every x days that's what people will do, and that's also a lot of why people do a Big Shop and fill up a car at an out-of-town supermarket. But that doesn't mean it has to be that way, and if there's a lower delivery charge then smaller deliveries of fresher produce look more appealing. Little and often rather than lots but occasionally. Unless he's eating 10 trays of food a day.
Whenever it comes to moving on from the existing car culture it's fairly typical to start off with deciding anything else won't work, and having started off with the answer to rationalise the evidence back. "Different" is not necessarily a problem, and it might be better once you're used to it.
The usual "and you can't do that with a bike" reminds me of when I picked up a fridge by bike from Comet. The lads took the box out the door, "where's your car?" and I pointed to the 8 Freight. They put it down next to it and went off scratching their heads and I set to work strapping in in place. Just as I was ready to go the manager came out, and the ensuing conversation went a bit like this...
"Errrrr. That looks very dodgy"
"It'll be fine"
"Errrr, I want to say that if you take it home on that we can't be responsible for your safety"
"So you would be responsible for my safety if I was driving?"
"Errrrrrrrr"
Pete.