Kevin Dekkinga rides his cargo bike with sons Willem, 10, left, and Pouwel, 7, along Eddy Street in Chicago on July 3, 2024. The boys were being dropped off at different summer camps.
Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS
CHICAGO — Kevin Dekkinga’s son was going to elementary school and the family faced a decision: buy a second car, or buy a new cargo bike.
His son would attend a Chicago Public Schools magnet school in a different neighborhood. His wife worked in the suburbs. And with CPS facing a bus driver shortage after the pandemic that left school bus service uncertain, the family felt they needed another reliable option to get around.
Dekkinga’s dilemma marked a quintessential issue for families: with more people in the household going more places, parents need a dependable way to get to work, run errands and get their kids to school and activities. For many, upgrading the family car seems a logical option.
But Dekkinga chose a second cargo bike, this one with electric assist. He has racked up miles in the years since, and in the last year he estimates he put more miles on the bike than on the family car, taking his sons from their Avondale home to school in Lakeview or to their two separate summer camps. He makes grocery runs. He hauls home 50-pound bags of feed for the backyard chickens.
Cyclists commuting to work, school, social outings and errands have become an increasingly common sight in Chicago, as bike use has skyrocketed in the city since the onset of the pandemic. Another increasingly common sight are cyclists toting children and other supplies in the large buckets that extend from their cargo bikes or on carriers overtop of the back wheels.
For these parents, a cargo bike is the family vehicle of choice. While for some, loading a child into a car can seem like the fastest, most convenient and safest option to get around, cargo-bike parents say the bikes offer the ability to avoid increasingly bad traffic and make travel around the city more pleasant and accessible.
Boosting biking is a goal of the city, and advocates say cargo bikes solve one of the limitations often cited by would-be cyclists by providing an option to haul goods and people. They effectively make bikes a feasible alternative to cars for those able to pedal.
But cargo bikes have their own limitations. They can cost thousands of dollars. Families need space to store the vehicles, which can be too heavy to carry up and down steps. Then there’s the need for a safe place to park the vehicle at the other end of the ride, where locking up to a lamppost might be an unappealing option.
Advocates and riders say adding more bike lanes, improving existing ones and creating bikeable routes that extend across neighborhoods could convince more people to ride.
Still, interest in cargo bikes has grown nationwide, especially those that give riders an electric assist. Through April, sales of new electric cargo bikes were up 125% over the same period in 2022, with 6,915 sold, according to market research data provided by advocacy group PeopleForBikes.
In Chicago, a recent study on biking from the Chicago Department of Transportation and the companies Replica and Sam Schwartz found bike trips for shopping had more than doubled from 2019 to 2023, and the number of households without cars had more than tripled.
Dekkinga, who works for bike advocacy organization the League of American Bicyclists, said his second, electric cargo bike cost $7,000 when he bought it during the pandemic. But when he added up the costs of buying a second car — gas, insurance, maintenance and the hassle of driving and parking — getting a second bike instead was the clear choice.
The weather can be challenging, he said, but he has a rain cover for the cargo bike and stocked up on weather-appropriate apparel. For really bad weather days or trips to the suburbs, he has public transit or the car to fall back on.
“I feel like when I am riding a bike I am making the city a safer and more connected place, and more resilient place for everyone,” he said.
He bought his first cargo bike, which did not have electric assist, about 10 years ago, excited to cycle around the city with his newborn kid, he said. At the time, he felt like he was one of the only people with such a vehicle.
Jon Lind, owner of J.C. Lind Bike Co. in Old Town, said he has seen the popularity of cargo bikes grow since he began selling them 16 years ago. Manufacturers are making a wider variety of options, and used cargo bikes are becoming more available at sometimes cheaper prices.
A game-changer, though, has been the advent of electric cargo bikes in recent years. Electric pedal assist makes moving a heavy bike loaded down with children and supplies less daunting, and more apealing to riders who might be dropping their kids off on the way to the office and don’t want to show up to work sweaty, he said.
Some of his customers have no cars, but most are looking to supplement one family car with a cargo bike, he said.
“They just do not care to be in a car in the city as much as possible,” he said. “They see the bike as more relaxing and enjoyable and just a more convenient and practical way to get from point A to point B in the city.”
