Bike Sense
Bike Sense: the podcast of The BC Cycling Coalition.
Join Host Peter Ladner as he interviews guests to talk about all things related to cycling advocacy, education, and road safety in BC. Listen to stories that can influence changes that make active transportation and mobility safer, more equitable, and more accessible, so we can meet our climate, health, social justice, tourism and economic development goals.
Please visit our website at bccycling.ca to find out more about what the BC Cycling Coalition is doing and how you can join and support us.
Bike Sense
Electric Cargo Bikes, yours for free – from the local library!
Curious about cargo e-bikes but hesitant to invest thousands without trying one first? North Vancouver has created an elegant solution that's transforming how families approach transportation decisions. All you need is a library card to check one out.
Duncan Wilcock, co-founder of Better North Shore, joins Bike Sense to share the story behind North Vancouver's groundbreaking cargo e-bike library program.
Contact Duncan at duncan@wilcock.ca
BetterNorthShore.ca
More info for people wanting to start up a cargo bike lending program in their own municipality:
DNV Libraries Cargo Bike Program
District of North Vancouver Cargo Bike Pilot Program
The Joy of E-Biking on the North Shore
Share your BikeSense with us! Send us a text message.
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The Bike Sense podcast with Peter Ladner is produced by the BC Cycling Coalition – your voice for safer and more accessible cycling and active transportation in British Columbia.
Membership in the BCCC is now FREE! To find out about BCCC's projects and add your voice to the chorus please visit BCCycling.ca
Welcome to Bike Sense, the BC Cycling Coalition's podcast, where we talk about all things related to active transportation advocacy in BC. I'm your host, peter Ladner, chair of the board of the BC Cycling Coalition. I hope you enjoy the show. Even for those of us who are longtime cyclists, the world of e-bikes is sometimes a bit of a mystery. For people who are already e-bike riders, like myself, the world of cargo bikes is definitely a mystery, and there is somebody in North Vancouver who has dedicated a lot of time to come up with a program to help solve that mystery. His name is Duncan Wilcock. He's our guest today. Duncan, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, peter, pleased to meet you. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:Could you introduce yourself and describe how you fit into the world of cargo e-bikes.
Speaker 2:My day job. I'm a sustainability consultant with Prism Engineering and in my passion projects I've co-founded an organization called Better North Shore here in North Vancouver and a few years ago I approached the city, approached the district of North Vancouver with an idea. I came up with an idea with a neighbor of how some of our neighbors were not using they were buying a second car and we were thinking how can we help them explore, look at options, transportation options, including cargo bikes. My neighbor had a cargo bike. He's a real hardcore cyclist, so his isn't even electric assist. But we realized wouldn't it be nice if you could go to the library and see them? It's actually Lynn Valley Library, it's a beautiful space and it's a square, if you saw them there outside and you could just take one from the library and test it out and maybe have it for a few days and see how it fits into your life. So that was the idea and we went from there.
Speaker 1:Could you, just before we get into it, what's it like riding a cargo bike? How is it different? You have a child. Describe what it's like for you to ride around with a heavy load and enter that world a little bit.
Speaker 2:That's right. I have a seven-year-old. He's been riding my bike since he was one year old. I got my bike around the time he was born. It is such a joy. He's a little boy and there's no better tool than an electric electric bike or cargo bike to get right next to a construction site. Sit there for hours and just watch the machines and the changes happen. It is just magical. He's right there with me, I can talk to him. I can stop immediately at the side of the road if he has questions. We're never stuck in traffic. We have no traffic Easy parking. I can talk to him. I can stop immediately at the side of the road if he has questions. We're never stuck in traffic. We have no traffic Easy parking. It's just fun.
Speaker 1:Now just describe the bike though, because your son is sitting behind you on this bike. He's not in a box out in front, is that right? And if he's behind, how do you make sure he doesn't fall off?
Speaker 2:Oh, so he's held in securely with bike seats. He's one from Thule, which makes a great one for a long time when he was in the younger years and now got a little bigger one that's made for his weight. He's about a 50-pound kid and I think it'll be good for another few years with him. So my bike is not a cargo bike. I don't personally ride a cargo bike. I have definitely explored them and looked closely at them and because I have one child I'm able to make it work. But the attraction of being able to put a bag of soccer balls in the front and take him to soccer practice, that's where my passion for cargo bikes has come from. And knowing that most of the other families I know have more than one kid, certainly you're trying to move more than one kid. You really kind of need the extra space that you can get with either a cargo bike with a long seat on the back or a box bike with a big box up front.
Speaker 1:You did a program to help introduce people to cargo bikes. Before we get into all of it, do you have any stories of somebody who got involved in your program and had some kind of life-changing experience, or at least wonderful experience?
Speaker 2:Here's one example that I saw. I was out riding in this beautiful trail called the Demonstration Forest in North Vancouver. It's about 10 kilometers of paved road that's through the woods and no car traffic on it. It's a great destination. And I was riding up there with a colleague from work who I was introducing to an e-bike her and her husband or partner I guess and we came across a family of five who were out. They'd borrowed the two e-bikes from the library, so the long tail two wheel version and the three wheel um, three wheel trike version, with the box up front for the less confident riders, and they had the three kids in these and they'd gone up the demo forest, had a picnic, just had a great family adventure. Another friend said they saw that same family because it was just such a joy to see later, down on what's called Grand Boulevard I don't know, they probably had a 20-kilometer adventure or something. It was just a joy to see.
Speaker 1:Now I presume that your dream goal in setting up this program again we'll get into the details shortly was that somebody like that would then go aha. I now understand how this could work and I will go and buy a bike, change my life, not buy that second car. Whatever. Has that indeed happened? You have some data now I'll ask you first Tell me about the program.
Speaker 2:It's a bike's available at a library, just one library, Multiple libraries. So the program started in September last year. It got, you know, from idea to get it, you know, going was you know a couple of years. It takes a little time for the government to sort of sort things out, Just pause for a second there.
Speaker 1:What has to be sorted out? You mentioned getting a counselor on side. Do you have to get a bike store on side? Do you have to get the library on side? How many partners need to be engaged for this to happen?
Speaker 2:So the initial idea was I took the idea to my councillor, jordan Beck, one of my councillors he's a great councillor here in the district of North Vancouver Rides a cargo bike himself with his two young kids. Is it one of the ones?
Speaker 1:with his name on the side of it, like another councillor in North.
Speaker 2:Vancouver? I haven't. It's not like Tony Valente that you're talking about. It's a different one from Tony's. I don't think Jordan has his name on it, but I bet when he goes out campaigning he does he certainly. He just uses it to get around town because it's the fastest way to get around town.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Jordan's on board. Then what? Yeah, he worked out how to take it to council as a report to council and secured some funding. How much District of North Bank? About $60,000 was the initial kind of estimate.
Speaker 2:I'd done a bunch of legwork to. You know, the initial concept was that the district would buy the library and the district would buy the bikes. But that, you know, after going through the, you know the government and working the mechanisms, working out the best way to do it, it was actually provided by Evo, the car sharing and bike sharing company that's the BCAA run. That's right, that's right. So lots of credit for them for stepping up. And so we met with the librarian. But none of this was necessary to get it going. Really, what happened was it went through staff and the staff at the District of North Van worked out okay. We'd like to do this, but we don't want to take on the liability of owning the bikes and sending them out. So they wanted to get an external contractor. So they got an external contractor. They put on the request for proposals and all that. And that's when BCAA, I think, stepped up and was the successful proponent Is BCAA operating.
Speaker 1:Do they have this capacity throughout the province? If somebody in Salmon Arm called them up and said we want to do, this.
Speaker 2:I believe they are interested in taking it further. Okay, yeah, their representative has given me that indication. I'm sure they have to look at it on a case-by-case basis, but this was a pilot, certainly a pilot for the District of North Van and it's a pilot for for bcaa. But it's um. It is through their main app. So if you have the evo app on your phone, you can just go to the evo return tab and see the the cargo bikes available there are.
Speaker 2:There were four libraries when they started in september. I think there are two currently. They've got a couple of construction issues going on, so they're right now they're at the Lynn Valley Library here in the district of North Van, and then we have the city of North Van which also has at their library the Lonsdale Library and there's two bikes available at both locations. There should be another two bikes available at those other locations in the months ahead. How much were they used? So I mentioned it starting in September kind of a late season start really and the summary from staff was they were blown away with the adoption. It was tremendous. They had 136 total trips in the two late season months of September to October 2024. 1,500 kilometers were ridden. That's more than two trips a day, with only seven bikes on offer. 88 individual people took part and 92% of the 88 riders were infrequent or occasional riders, meaning they ride less than three trips per year to date in September.
Speaker 1:Are you talking about riding cargo bikes or riding any bikes?
Speaker 2:Riding any bikes.
Speaker 1:That's the the my reading of it and do you have any data on what they did afterwards? Did it change their right, their transportation habits?
Speaker 2:I don't have that data yet. Um, I, I've got some. I've got an anecdote from, uh, uh, a couple of bike shops. One that comes to mind is the Lynn Valley bike shop. They certainly sold a cargo bike to a family that said, oh, we went and tried it out and buying a cargo bike tried out at the library and they're buying a cargo bike.
Speaker 1:So what are the barriers to buying a cargo bike? Because I know somebody who had one and it broke down, need to be replaced, and she said, oh my goodness, I don't even know where to start. Like, how do I assess models and test?
Speaker 2:them out and know the costs. I'm in the middle of writing an article on this right now, actually for our Better North Shore website. So you've decided to buy an e-bike. I think you need a place to store it, a safe place to store it. That's the first one and that's a, you know, that's that's a real motivator for me. I don't have a garage. Um, I uh, you know I have a, uh, a lockable utility trailer is what I use and, um, um, knowing whether it's going to fit in there, how long? The bikes are a bit longer. So that's a part of the fitting it into your life. Where are you going to store it? Do you have a safe place to store it? No, it's not going to be stolen. End of trip facilities is the, is the the term, as I'm sure you know, and hub cycling has a great uh pdf on on good end of trip facilities. Um, cost is a barrier. You know they're not. They're more expensive than a regular e-bike what's the cost range?
Speaker 1:what? What's the minimum you you'd probably pay for? A decent one yeah, they're.
Speaker 2:You know I see a lot of people what they call on the, the rad power, they call them dad power bikes and that's what jordan back rides and those, those I think you can get into. For you know, 2500, 3000, they're long tail. Long tail tend to be a little easier and may seem you know some people. The initial take is that's really expensive. But as soon as you put it beside the price of a car if it's a car replacer it's really it's a bargain.
Speaker 1:I just paid four hundred dollars to get my car service routine servicing yeah, twelve thousand dollars is average cost a car for everyone per year.
Speaker 2:You know we're talking about purchase price. And then no insurance. No, no ongoing. You know usage insurance, maybe some theft insurance if you like. Um, and then, uh, you know you can buy. There are really nice ones with particularly the box, more the european style, the box bike on the front.
Speaker 1:It can go up to the 10 000 mark are these widely available at bike shops, even, let's say, on the north shore? Do you have to order?
Speaker 2:them especially. Um, there are a number of bike shops on the north shore I could name that have them. I can think of three or four, four offhand. I know of several over in the city of Vancouver as well, so they're readily available. I believe it's part of a wave that's coming. All this micro mobility and electric bikes really just so game changing.
Speaker 1:Do you have any data on how many people here in, let's just say, bc Data on how many people here in, let's just say, bc use cargo bikes compared to other jurisdictions? Because I know I was recently in New York City and there was a whole world of couriers who just ride e-bikes and cargo bikes around. And we see pictures, of course, of Copenhagen, with the moms all lined up at the coffee shop with the cargo bikes all parked outside while they go and have coffee with their kids or whatever.
Speaker 2:Canada Post and FedEx have been using them for deliveries in the city of Vancouver, downtown Victoria, calgary, for a few years. I don't have any data data specifically to your question. No, I can tell you. Was it? 12 or 13 people turned up to the cargo bike race that we held here in North Vancouver, uh, in August 2023. That was a real hoot, got some great photos and got a news article about it. Uh, it was, uh, it was um, it was uh. It's worth telling about it. It's a. It's a mixed um. It's inspired by one in Portland. That's a. It was a emergency response dressed up as a cargo bike race. So this, this, so the scenario is the earthquake, the big one, has just happened. It's three days into the earthquake. You're running low on water and medical supplies. You have a cargo bike. You can help Because you're with bridges out and that sort of thing. It's actually a very resilient vehicle. You could manhandle it across the look some of the rivers if we needed to.
Speaker 1:I know my son and daughter-in-law were living in Whistler and calculated that in the event of a fire there, with one road out north, one road south, it would take about 10 hours for all the cars to finally find their way out. And he had a cargo bike loaded up with his emergency bag and figured he could just slide up the side of the backed up cars and get his way out of there. So the pilot was completed and you've got the data. Is it going to continue?
Speaker 2:So the pilot isn't completed. It was in two parts. It took a pause over the winter months, paused at the end of October, probably because it can be pretty hard on the bikes with the salt, and it's just how they define the pilot. The bikes are back on the street, so the pilot is ongoing until end of August. So it's exciting and I would love to.
Speaker 2:One of the great things about the person who put this program together was that he told me he made it open sourced so that it's very easy for another local government here in BC or elsewhere perhaps to copy the model, copy his documents, work with BCAA or an RFP for another proponent, and I'd love to see this spread elsewhere throughout the province. Where would someone go to get that open source information? I'd be happy to take. Yeah, I'd be happy for someone to contact me and I can connect them with the staff member at the District of North Van. Okay, they could also contact the District of North Van. They have a yeah, they have an email. If you search, if you Google cargo bikes at District of North Van, it'll have an email address for you there as well. We'll put that in the show notes so people can see. Yeah, yeah, we can put my email address in the show notes and everything too.
Speaker 1:Do you have any recommendations of A box versus a long tail versus a trailer, which I assume are all different ways of carrying cargo and bike?
Speaker 2:It's a great point. In the cargo bike race we had bikes with trailers. I have a bike with trailers so I've kind of used mine as a cargo bike. I've definitely explored and looked at buying a dedicated cargo bike. I've chosen to stick with the standard length bikes for some other reasons. I think, like a lot of these questions, it depends on your needs, really exploring it.
Speaker 2:I think the cargo bike box up front is the I don't know most versatile. There's a real joy to having your child or the people that you're talking to just in front of you. So having the box in front and you can engage with them better and see your cargo, see if your box of soccer balls or your bags of cement or whatever it is you're trying to move are falling out. The lower cost alternative and most popular alternative is the lower cost one and the most popular around North America is the longer tail. So that's one of the options offered at the library.
Speaker 2:It's not just a district North fan, you know. I think believe it's not limited to just people who live in the district North fan. Other people from Metro van can try these out through the Evo app. And yeah, the bike trailer is I prefer having having. I personally don't find the bike trailer as as as I find a little less less versatile than having it all in one, having your kid on the back with you or, uh, or your cargo on on with you. So, but it's, uh, it's a less expensive alternative. It's one I use, so that covers the range.
Speaker 1:I can remember seeing in Copenhagen families where I counted four kids in one of those boxes and one mother was riding them around. So let's talk about the riders for a moment. You come to the library. Do you have to have any certification? I know there's a certification program for cargo bike delivery people. They have to learn, pass some kind of a test. Do you have to be specially fit? Do you have to be know something about riding e-bikes? Is it difficult to learn? How do they teach?
Speaker 2:no, no, it's, it's not difficult. Um, and you know, I, I can understand the reason for the, the cargo one you're talking about. I mean, on your podcast recently about cycling without age, they talked about, you know, carrying two adults 500 kilograms the thing's going to behave differently. But carrying a, a few kids, uh, you know more like two adults 500 kilograms, the thing's going to behave differently. But carrying a few kids, uh, you know more like a hundred, a hundred pounds of weight. A hundred pounds of weight, uh, was 500 pounds, was probably the got the unit wrong there. Um, so, uh, a hundred pounds of weight doesn't make as much difference. Um, they all.
Speaker 2:All the person needs to do is, um, I think I've created an Evo account, so download that Evo app, which the instructions I guess we can put in the show notes. But also, if you search for Distries of North Van cargo bikes and they are available in the city of North Van as well It'll give you the instructions. There's no, you just turn up, it's free, there's no charge for taking them and there's no test or license. How long can you take them for? You can take them for as long as for a full library day. You book how long you're going to take it. They don't stay out overnight.
Speaker 1:Are these bikes all or typically pedal electric, where you have to pedal to stimulate the motor, or do some of them just have a Correct? They're pedal electric, no, just straight up throttles.
Speaker 2:Neither of the ones that they have are throttle. These are really nice, high quality bikes. The one is I think it's made by Specialized is a long tail two-wheeler, and then the three-wheel box bike is I don't recall the brand, but is a really high quality one. Yes, they're pedal electric. To finish my last question, I think so you can get up to nine hours of an adventure. You know if you went from sort of 10 am till 7 pm or something like that Time for a nice ride down to the demonstration forest and a picnic and the return trip Picnic and a trip down to the shipyards for ice cream.
Speaker 2:Some of the data that returned in the first couple of months of it showed some sample trips and they're really wide-ranging. They go all over our area and, as you can imagine, the North Shore is a very hilly place. We go from zero to 300 meters of elevation and people have enjoyed those trips. Do you know anything?
Speaker 1:about the users? Are they typically recreational users, commuters, businesses?
Speaker 2:I think the main thing I know about them is that 92% of them are, you know, infrequent or occasional riders, so I think they're probably not commuters. They're, you know, recreational and e-bike curious, cargo bike curious.
Speaker 1:So what would be your dream goal for this program? Presumably seeing it work in North Van, and then Could you see this working everywhere could see it working everywhere.
Speaker 2:I'd say my two dream goals are for it to continue in North Van. It's a pilot, so at the moment it will end after a year. I'd love to see it continue here. I think it's already proven itself successful and I think it's going to bring a lot of joy. And beyond that, I'd love to see it spread elsewhere in BC and beyond. I think it's another. Libraries are such a fantastic resource and I got to credit Jacqueline Van Dyke, the head of the DNV public library. We met with her and spoke with her and she immediately saw the.
Speaker 1:She wasn't an e-bike rider, but the whole conversation turned would require $60,000 to make this program work, and then BCAA stepped in. If you were to do it again or extend it, what would be the cost to the municipality?
Speaker 2:So that was the initial budget. I don't know the costs to the municipality. The initial budget included purchasing three cargo bikes and some maintenance contracts and things. So that was the initial concept, I suspect. With having BCAA do it it was probably less expensive per bike and maybe that's why there's more bikes than we initially proposed. So I know the District of North Van also partnered with the City of North Van, so that's why we have it at both libraries. So it's an idea that spread to both North Vancouver municipalities. If it weren't, for this program?
Speaker 1:are you aware of any other cargo bikes that are available through your typical bike rental, like bike rentals from a bike store? That's a great question. Bike share program.
Speaker 2:I am not aware of other cargo bike rental or I think only if you're considering purchasing one here in North Van. I mean, I hear about them overseas. I think the city of Freiburg in Germany just has them on the side of the road for free use when you need to move, which is amazing. But I think this is a great step in that.
Speaker 1:Duncan, congratulations on this program, and I know you wanted to have a whole bunch of other people on here because you don't want to take all credit for it, but we can only really work with one person. So I'm glad to hear it from you and I'm glad you're happy to credit the other people.
Speaker 2:You know I'm just a guy with the idea, like, if I can briefly mention, jordan Back, the counselor, brenda James, who came up with the idea, michelle Lamb, who worked hard on it, mac Fitzgerald, the other key person at the District of North Van there's probably some people I'm missing Jacqueline Van Dyke, the head of the District of North Van Public Library. You know, ideas are one thing, but execution is really what matters, and Brendan and Michelle really executed on this idea, made it a reality. So they deserve all the credit for this and I'm just tickled to see it happening. It just brings joy to my face, just like Jordan's, whenever I see anybody on one or when I use them myself.
Speaker 2:I've used them a few times myself to take my son to soccer and to see precisely would it fit in the bike storage space I have and how does it feel? I mean, my little guy was like, no, no, I want to take the three-wheeler, let's take the trike. I'm like, no, I want to ride the two-wheeler, but okay, we'll take the three-wheeler, that's what you want to do, so fun.
Speaker 1:Well, I remember something we learned at the Active Transportation Summit about how the key for all these programs is political will, and it sounds like you had some people both on your council and in your bureaucracy and, dare I say, in the library system, who had the political will to push this forward and carry it through. Do you think that would be difficult in some communities?
Speaker 2:Oh, of course, you know there's politics. This is different depending on the people involved. You know I should also give a lot of credit to the, the counselors of the district of North Van, who unanimously voted to allocate some money and give this a try. So there was no pushback from your council. There were questions, you know. There were questions. You know I think Jordan did a good job of of putting together it in a way and we, you know, price it out and you know it was a a motion to explore it and it was a motion to explore it and it was explored and made a reality.
Speaker 1:Well, with the possible demise of subsidies for electric vehicles that we're hearing about, the BC Cycling Coalition is actively advocating for a repeat or expansion of rebates for e-bikes. A repeat or expansion of rebates for e-bikes, and this would, I think, be a very big selling point in helping. Once people have this introductory ability through the the library rental program, I could foresee a much bigger intake uptake of cargo bike use, which would enable so many more things to be done with a bike in a more affordable, healthy, happy way and, from all I've heard, kids really like them too. It's more fun riding around a bike than in the back of a car.
Speaker 2:It sure is, sure is. I feel like my son has a tremendous connection with his community and awareness of space from all the bike riding that we've done around our community together and it just makes our city better. Libraries have so much to give the community in more than just books. They have carbon dioxide sensors, they have 3D printers. At our library they have a podcast recording studio and a video recording studio, and this is yet another thing that they can introduce to the community that it's just a win, win, win.
Speaker 1:Thank you, duncan. Thank you for your work in this, Thank you for your inspiration, and I really hope other communities are listening and able to take up your offer of the open source access to how to do this and make their cities bigger, small, better places. Thank you, peter. You've been listening to Bike Sense, an original podcast from the BC Cycling Coalition. If you like the podcast, we'd be grateful if you could leave us a rating. On whatever platform you use, you can also subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If you have comments or suggestions for future episodes, email me at peterladner at bccyclingca. You can help us amplify BC Cycling Coalition's voice by simply becoming a free member at bccyclingca. Thank you.