UPS Started As Bicycle Messenger Service
It’s kind of crazy when you think about it, but the global shipping giant UPS devolved from a bicycle messenger service into one that conducts most of its deliveries by motorized transport. Not to fear, though, they’re getting back to their roots:
Dodging car doors and ignoring the persistent complaints of his quads, Jesse Wendel pedals, the 200-trailered pounds behind him a painfully obvious shadow.
Most days, the UPS driver is behind the wheel of a mammoth truck.
But this holiday season, he’s downgrading from four wheels to two.
Slammed with extra packages for the holidays, the company is dispatching its own fleet of bicycles on the West Coast to save on gas and increase the speed of deliveries.
“With today’s economy we’re trying to find ways to conserve fuel and lessen our carbon footprint,” explained UPS business manager Jim Hagle of Eugene. “Anything we can do to get people in shape and reduce miles — that’s what we want to do.”
When BikePortland reported on this a week or so ago, and left a phone number to call, I called immediately and left a voice mail that said, “San Francisco wants to do this, too!”
I got a call back that said something like, “Thank you very much for the message - we’re going to check this out up here (Portland/etc.), and then if it’s successful, we’ll look at expanding it to other locations.” I thought BikePortland did a follow-up, but I couldn’t find it - I remember reading somewhere about UPS receiving lots of phone calls of support for the project, with a bunch of advocates calling from all over the place.
Any way we can replace motorized traffic with active transport is a good thing. I’d been hoping we could pursue something like this here in San Francisco since I often rode by the UPS depot on 17th Street, and 17th Street is one of the routes in the bike plan. Private car transport in the city is ultimately wasteful of space and resources - we need to be able to let business be conducted by real businesses - whether they be on bikes or in trucks - they should not be stuck in traffic behind inefficient cars. Private car transport has to be restricted. We are starting to address that with improved parking metering, and congestion pricing needs to happen. Commercial traffic is very useful to the city, so taxes against it should be limited. Private, wasteful single-occupancy vehicles should bear the brunt of any new taxes levied for congestion.
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