(This story has been corrected since it was first posted.)

Pink tricycles that haul up to 600 pounds of cargo could be doing the work of delivery trucks downtown this spring.

Five post-secondary students in their 20s plan to launch the delivery service May 1.

“We want to shift perceptions about cycling,” said Graham Anderson, a 23-year-old co-founder of the for-profit co-operative called Shift Delivery Co-op. “We’re shifting goods around in the downtown area. We’re shifting the goods movement and distribution industry and, of course, shifting gears on our trikes.”

Shift Delivery is applying for a business licence from the city and wants to ensure it can use the city’s separated bike lanes. Once it’s established handling deliveries from companies located in and around downtown, the co-operative plans to follow in the treads of Portland’s two-year-old B-Line cargo tricycle delivery service and set up a warehouse. Goods from further afield could be dropped off at the warehouse and hauled by the environmentally friendly trikes for the final leg of their trip into the city centre.

“What we’ve heard from some of our launching clients here is that for some of the office towers downtown, their trucks actually have to wait in lineups as they’re waiting for the loading zones to become available,” Anderson said. “So they’re sitting there idling and wasting time and money.”

He expects Shift Delivery tricycles will bypass stalled traffic and park on sidewalks directly outside destinations.

Anderson, Loretta Laurin and Robyn Ashwell dreamt up the idea of goods delivery by bike a year ago in the their third year social enterprise course at Simon Fraser University. The course is part of their studies in Sustainable Community Development.

The SFU students enlisted University of B.C. student Kevin Cooper, who had launched a cargo bike local food delivery service from the UBC Farm to residents and offered deliveries from the Kitsilano and Main Street farmers markets, and Grace Soo, a financial administration student at BCIT.

The team bought two extended tricycles that pull lightweight aluminum boxes with fabric canopy soft tops locally. They originally came from the U.K.

They’re adding optional electric-assist motors that run on rechargeable battery packs and plan to upgrade to hardtop trailers.

The five students will test-run deliveries this month.

So far, Anderson has towed the other co-founders around.

“It’s pretty hard work,” he said.

Four companies with environmental concerns are interested in Shift Deliveries’ service.

Mathieson McCrae, general manager for the Vancouver outlet of FROGBOX, which rents, delivers and picks up reusable moving containers, says a one-person condo move typically uses 25 FROGBOXES. Shift Delivery believes their current trailers could carry 20 boxes and a dolly.

“If we can save truck time, that keeps our truck off the road. It’s not in the way of other drivers and other pedestrians and cyclists, it’s not emitting carbon downtown. That’s a good thing,” McCrae said.

Anderson and the other co-founders will own and operate Shift Delivery until business grows and new members join the co-operative. He said Portland’s B-Line operates three cargo tricycles with 10 part- and full-time employees.

crossi@vancourier.com

Twitter: @Cheryl_Rossi