It's an uphill battle to replace trucking with cycling
Could you lug 500 pounds around a busy city street...on a bicycle?
These people do - in fact, some lug up to three times that weight - as part of The New Amsterdam Project, a bicycle delivery service in the Boston metro area. The Cambridge-based organization maintains five "bike vans" that look like large tricycles with fiberglass boxes attached to the back. The bikes have electric assists to help the cyclists with tough uphills.
The company is still a baby: its fleet is still small, and its clients are under a dozen, and they still haven't pulled in a profit . But New Amsterdam's CEO is confident that the number of customers will increase, especially with companies not wanting to pay an arm and a leg for gas to deliver products via truck (NA's delivery costs are way cheaper than truck delivery costs).
So far, New Amsterdam has saved about 180 gallons of gas, but once all five vehicles are logging 600 miles per week, the organization expects to save more than 1,000 gallons of gas per year.
I've seen these vehicles around town, and their drivers work hard, especially when weaving in and around Boston traffic. I worry about the cyclists' health, though, as they breathe in the smog from the surrounding drivers.
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