Who will profit from "zero emissions delivery"?

An alert reader reminded me that when Portland City Hall touts an "innovative" "public-private partnership," it's a good idea to start following the money. In particular, the reader thought I should think about who will rake in the dough when the city's absurd new rules forbidding gas-powered trucks from making deliveries in parts of downtown kick in.

It isn't much of a mystery. The KGW version of the story gets right to it:

Rivera said the city plans to partner with B-line Sustainable Urban Delivery, a local business that specializes in zero-emissions delivery tricycles and will provide incentives to companies as they work to adjust to the new rules. 

Larger trucks will be able to drop loads at the B-line warehouse, on the central eastside, where they can be broken into smaller shipments and delivered by tricycle.  

“This is an innovative way to see if we can start to use smaller, cleaner, greener vehicles to have less pollution, less carbon emissions and safer streets,” Rivera said. 

Uh huh.

So who is B-line? It's a for-profit company that's been operating in town for more than a dozen years. It was founded and is run by a guy named Franklin Jones. Here he is in the early days, schmoozing with then-City Councilman "Legend" Dan Saltzman (the Dandy Dan Ryan of his day) shortly after Jones arrived here from the Bay Area and started the company.

As best I can tell, B-line, which is an assumed business name for Freeroot Ventures, Inc., operates a warehouse on Southeast 7th Avenue and a small fleet of electric cargo tricycles. The B-line warehouse space appears to be one of several businesses in a larger, 18,000-square-foot facility, known as the Redd, owned by a limited liability company associated with EcoTrust, the ultimate player in the nonprofit industrial complex.

It looks like B-line employs about two or three dozen people. Its tricycles have display boards on the sides of the cargo bins, and B-line sells the space to advertisers. The company says it also rents out some of its warehouse space to clients. 

The delivery system at the heart of the operation is pretty straightforward. Clients have their deliveries made to the B-line warehouse, rather than to the clients' own places of business. B-line then loads the stuff into one of its cargo trikes, and a bright-eyed, fit-looking young person rides the trike from the warehouse to the clients' shop. Somehow this is good for the earth.

You could certainly argue about whether this really cuts down emissions. If a delivery is coming from points west or south, it's hard to see how driving the truck over to Southeast 7th, instead of just stopping downtown, improves air quality. But it gets more bikey toys on the street, and that's what Portland "transportation" regulation is all about. The bureaucrats are absolute dictators about it. And B-line is their darling du jour.

Anyway, it looks like a legitimate enough corporation. If B-line's clients, who seem to be mostly in the food business, want to spend their money on this dubious virtue-signaling, so be it. It's kind of amusing, actually, "Portland Weird" in its most harmless sense. But when the city starts forcing people to use the B-line service, the whole scene takes on a decidedly different look, regardless of the "incentives." 

You have to wonder whether other shippers are being offered a chance to play. UPS has electric cargo trikes, I think. Is the "partnership" deal being put out to public bid? Is it required to be? 

If you believe this is really some noble experiment, I've got an aerial tram I want to sell you, again.