This month, I was fortunate to be invited to present some of the good work promoting bicycle based business deliveries in London Bridge at the Designing Cities Conference in Toronto, made up of 200 North America cities.

In London Bridge, the Bikes for Business scheme has introduced a zero emissions option into the busy world of urban freight. The main points I was able to make were:

Cargo bikes can be highly time efficient for a proportion of deliveries within 5 to 10 miles
Cargo bike deliveries play a positive role in helping make great places
There can be spin-off benefits to businesses beyond price and reliability, including marketing, corporate social responsibility and developing new relationships

Funnily enough, during my visit to Toronto’s idyllic Ward’s Island, known for its artist community and ban on traffic, goods have always been shifted by cargo bike, whether the post, the bread or people doing their shopping – so I did wonder if City was not aware of a case study on its own doorstep.

It was interesting to hear how north American cities suffer from urban logistics and freight, and how jealous they are of some of the policies in place in London, such as ULEZ and protected cycle lanes, that we have been able to advocate. Cycling on a cycle share scheme in Toronto made me realise just how far ahead we are in this regard.

There is a strong focus in Canada and America on equity and race. With change and development comes a responsibility to work on behalf of all people and to make decisions which don’t build new divisions.

The focus on air quality, health and climate change seem less central to transport projects, and more dependent on the perspective of individual cities (if you don’t measure it, it’s not a problem). But there is emphasis on building large scale resilience to flooding and urban heat given the increased threat from extreme weather. There are 82 BIDs in Toronto, which seem to have less ability to take a more environmental agenda forward - something that we are constantly exploring with our business community in London Bridge – but I was lucky to witness their central role in bringing vibrancy and colour to local streets.

So, my main ‘takeaways’ are:

To use the power I have to advocate for the people I represent
To engage with people, because the things we do must connect with the people we are doing it for
There can be no excuse to make single service interventions anymore – our investment must meet multiple objectives, like beauty, sustainability, and practicality

I look forward to bringing some of the American enthusiasm and creativity to the work here, but am also aware that we are doing pretty well already.

You can contact me at jack@teamlondonbridge.co.uk or visit our Bikes for Business page for more information.

Presenting London Bridge to North America

This month, I was fortunate to be invited to present some of the good work promoting bicycle based business deliveries in London Bridge at the Designing Cities Conference in Toronto, made up of 200 North America cities.