Originally Posted by
tjspiel
It's a good question. I've wondered as well. They do the same thing with bike share bikes. I like to think of them as a greener way for people to get around but I'm concerned about how much of that is lost by the fact that the bikes themselves get moved by pickup truck.
Very different for bikeshare. They can carry about 18 bikes with one truck (and about another 30 on a trailer). The bikes are light so trucks aren't carrying a heavy load. They are rebalancing among numerous locations so can create fairly efficient routes for a single truck and these are getting better each year. From an energy standpoint it is more than offset by people having ridden a bicycle rather than drive a car or bus. Not sure about the monetary side.