" ‘In at the deep end’: ditching the car for a cargo bike on the school run"

[Jdsk]

"‘In at the deep end’: ditching the car for a cargo bike on the school run":
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... school-run

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

I live twixt a nearby primary school and the Concorde Way (or at least what's left of it now they're rebuildng the railway station...). The two are separated by a short steep hill. I see at least two families travelling to and fro' the school on board leccy cargo bikes We're plumb in the middle of middle class Bristol, mind...

[Carlton green]

"‘In at the deep end’: ditching the car for a cargo bike on the school run":
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... school-run

Jonathan

An interesting article about a Mum’s test drives to decide whether to buy or not. There wasn’t a conclusion other than think about it, so maybe it’ll be a ‘no’ but it’s provided a useful article to my employer - a bit of income. The brand probably welcomes some positive free advertising too.

Shifting children about is a major challenge for the parents of babies, toddlers and primary school age children. We all tut about children being dropped off at school by car but happily ignore the logistics that some parents face. If I had to walk children to and from my local primary school then I’d loose about two hours a day as opposed to about forty with a car - done both but a long time ago. There are no easy answers and if you have more than two children then, to take them all, you’ll need a very big electric bike.

An interesting article though and it prompts thought. Not all solutions work for all people and schools typically have limited parking spaces around them (cargo bikes aren’t small and do take space too), given restricted parking space schools likely - and understandably - much prefer parents and children to simply arrive on foot.

[Richard Fairhurst]

The Guardian seems weirdly obsessed by the price of electric cargo bikes:

There are various “car replacement” bikes on the market with eye-watering price tags. The Tern GSD retails at £5k-plus at the top end.

Just wait until you find out how much a car costs...

(We have a Tern GSD which I use to take Junior and typically one of his friends to school, which is a three-mile journey each way. It's brilliant - copes with the Cotswold hills without breaking sweat, the kids love it, and there's a waterproof cover you can fit in about three minutes for when it's raining. Parking is very limited where I live, so doing the school run by car is always a pain - you can end up driving round for five minutes to find a space - whereas I can just wheel the GSD into the hallway.)

[pjclinch]

The Guardian seems weirdly obsessed by the price of electric cargo bikes:

There are various “car replacement” bikes on the market with eye-watering price tags. The Tern GSD retails at £5k-plus at the top end.

Just wait until you find out how much a car costs...

On the one hand, yes they do, on the other, they're certainly not alone in that regard, and it's not just e-bikes.
For example, a friend of mine is a professional potter and every now and then she'll get a commission for a special mug or similar, and there'll be a quote for about £40 and quite often that's the end of that because "mugs don't cost that much". Of course, if you think in terms of skilled professional time they should probably cost more more for a bespoke custom one-off, but people don't consider that, they just think "mugs don't cost that much".

As for how much a car costs, you can get a pretty decent car for about a grand, as long as you're okay second hand and nothing too whizzy. That you'll quite possibly spend the same every year to get it through its MOT is another matter, as is the cost of running the thing, but it's the headline price that people work from. And because we live in a motor-centric society there's lots of things set up to do by car and people think in terms of cars, so the idea of something that can't do all a car can do and for more money than a competent second hand car would cost is a head-scratcher.
We do need to get people to the point of thinking about what a cargo bike can do that a car can't: stuff like taking up much less road space, parking space, having a lower carbon footprint, creating much less road danger, being fundamentally better suited to relatively light loads over short trips (e.g., one small person to a nursery half a mile up the road it's a bit daft using something capable of 70+ mph for hours on end with 5 people and their luggage for a week's holiday on board).

But for the time being we're trapped in a loop where folk feel they need cars because society & culture assume they'll have cars. And if you want a car that means it's pretty easy to get one, with an excellent second hand market and lots of supply. Cargo bikes, particularly e-cargo bikes, don't have a rich second hand market and until they do people will say, not unreasonably, that not only could they buy a car for that, they could buy several cars for that.

Pete.

[Jdsk]

The Guardian seems weirdly obsessed by the price of electric cargo bikes:

There are various “car replacement” bikes on the market with eye-watering price tags. The Tern GSD retails at £5k-plus at the top end.

Just wait until you find out how much a car costs...
...

I don't think that it's weird. Many people would never dream of spending that much on an HPV. But the article raises the possibility, and that's the first step in considering alternatives.

(We used tandems, two grandchildren now use a tagalong tandem trailer trike, and one uses a child seat on an electric road bike or a Tern.)

Jonathan

[PH]

I don't think that it's weird. Many people would never dream of spending that much on an HPV. But the article raises the possibility, and that's the first step in considering alternatives.

I have mixed feelings about such articles, it's easy to read them and conclude they offer the only practical option, when for many that isn't the case and the cost offers another excuse.
Where I live, an area where the newsagent sells few Guardians, the current preferred non car transport for collecting kids from school is two up, occasionally three, on an electric scooter.

[TrevA]

The world has changed a lot from when I was a kid. My younger sister and I went to different junior schools, my dad was always at work and my mum (who never learned to drive) couldn’t take both of us to school, so I used to go on my own from the age of 7. It was about a mile each way. I had a lot of friends who lived nearby and we’d all walk to school together. My mum gave me 6d a day so that I could catch the bus, but I would only do that if it was raining, I would walk to school mostly and I’d always walk home. I’d spend the 6d on sweets. Nowadays you wouldn’t dream of letting a 7 year old go to school on their own, but then it was the norm.

I think cargo bikes work in London and certain other locations, where car transport is not practical (even though some continue to use cars in those situations).

[axel_knutt]

We do need to get people to the point of thinking about what a cargo bike can do that a car can't.

As long as there are things that a car can do that a cargo bike can't, it will be a case of buying the bike in addition to a car rather than instead of it, and possibly in addition to ordinary bikes too.

[pjclinch]

We do need to get people to the point of thinking about what a cargo bike can do that a car can't.

As long as there are things that a car can do that a cargo bike can't, it will be a case of buying the bike in addition to a car rather than instead of it, and possibly in addition to ordinary bikes too.

Up to a point, but I can think of things a car can't do that a 3 tonne van can... but when most folk need a Transit they hire it, they don't keep one on site all the time just in case.
We scrapped our car when it ran out of MOT-passing grace earlier this year and we haven't replaced it. We have joined a car club. Around town, which is where most of our journeys and light cargo needs happen, our cargo bikes are cheaper and easier and just better for our context than a car, so that's what we have as our main cargo luggers. I drive about once a month these days, I use my cargo bike considerably more, so it doesn't make much sense to have a very expensive box sat outside doing nothing almost the whole time just for those things it can do that the bike can't, especially if I can just hire one for the day, or even for just a couple of hours.

Pete.

[Jdsk]

...
Up to a point, but I can think of things a car can't do that a 3 tonne van can... but when most folk need a Transit they hire it, they don't keep one on site all the time just in case.
We scrapped our car when it ran out of MOT-passing grace earlier this year and we haven't replaced it. We have joined a car club. Around town, which is where most of our journeys and light cargo needs happen, our cargo bikes are cheaper and easier and just better for our context than a car, so that's what we have as our main cargo luggers. I drive about once a month these days, I use my cargo bike considerably more, so it doesn't make much sense to have a very expensive box sat outside doing nothing almost the whole time just for those things it can do that the bike can't, especially if I can just hire one for the day, or even for just a couple of hours.

Thanks for sharing (!) that, and the reminder of the options other than car ownership.

Jonathan