While bicycles are quite convenient for commuting, I am not sure if there is a way for transporting groceries for an entire week for multiple people. Is there such a way? The only solution I see is doing groceries every day.
Groceries every day (or every few days) becomes viable and common in cities like Paris. It’s a lot easier to do when you don’t have to take a car, and the culture then shifts too to fresher food.
Why does it need to be either/or? I make do almost the entire week without a car. Schools within walking distance, then mass transit to work.
So what if I own and use a small family car, to go shopping and take the kids places?
Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
My neighborhood is a real life 15min city, and most people of all ages choose to walk. We don't need to prevent families from owning a car and taking it grocery shopping once a week.
Plenty of Europeans have cargo bikes and make do with 2-3 supermarket trips per week for families of 4-5 peeps.
Only bulk drinks (crates of beer/soda/...) are challenging. But for those, very often delivery systems are in place that surely are more efficient than individual trips anyways.
I regularly carry four cases of water (48 cans) on my standard bicycle without a problem.
Whenever I go grocery shopping I mount a milk crate to my rear rack (this takes about six seconds) and put the cases in vertically. I can also carry a 4L jug of milk in the handlebar-mounted basket.
My mom used to this year round, in every weather and temperature (incl. -20C), when I was a kid several decades ago.
Honestly I don't know how she did it, but she did. It helped that we had separated bike lanes pretty much everywhere. It is entirely possible if the infrastructure supports it.
This sort of thing is why I'm personally a big fan of the 15-minute city concept.
In London we had multiple supermarket options within 10 mins walk. And even more within 10 minutes cycling distance.
Usually we’d just stop on the way home from work or whatever to do small, quick shops for whatever we needed.
But on the rare occasion where we did need to do a “big shop”, we just ordered groceries online for delivery the next day. All the major UK supermarkets offer this, with free or very cheap delivery, delivered by environmentally-friendly electric trucks.
Cargo bikes or bike trailers are two of many solutions to this dilemma that immediately sprung to mind. In the Netherlands I have seen grocery stores deliver large deliveries in big tricycles.
There are billions of people that manage their shopping without a car. Millions of them live in North America. Surely, some of them have solved this problem for a family without having to go shopping daily.
We can do it, but it's going to be two trips. However, there's like half a dozen grocery stores within a 10 minute bike radius where I live (modern suburb). Others who live out in the countryside will need to travel further, but that's generally the tradeoff; more comfortable / quiet living in exchange for longer distance to amenities.
