Why fewer women than men cycle in the US

[rebeccaC]

I can buy run-of-the-mill grocery items close to home, using a bike trailer, or I can buy harder to get stuff in town, using a backpack or taking public transport. But I then have a 15 minute walk home. So heavy or bulky hard-to-get items are only bought when we're already out with the car for some reason, maybe once a month. Luckily I whole-heartedly loathe taking the car into town, so going without these items for a while doesn't feel like much of a hardship ;-)

i see more cargo bikes being used here all the time and I've always seen trailers for children/shopping etc. When I was in Europe a little while ago i saw that the French Intermarché supermarkets were delivering groceries by cargo bikes now, DHL and Fedex using them in city cores and a lot of the cities were experimenting with moving city freight with cargo bikes. We have a Whole Foods here that delivers with cargo bikes. I talked to a woman working for a cargo bike delivery company in Seattle the last time I was in the PNW. She said Portland, Chicago, NYC and Toronto are just a few of the places using cargo bike deliveries in city cores.


Unfortunately most of the U.S. has a different attitude about it and seems to be stuck with the status quo. With better bike infrastructure across the country, though, we could start making it easier for more and more businesses, and individuals, to opt for a cargo bike for transporting things, and people. At least we have some cities working on the urban design and infrastructure to make it easier…..so we’ll have models for others to use.