Background

Of course ALDI is not the old-fashioned neighborhood grocery shop. It is a big place, and many customers will default to the car as their primary mode of transport. But the official specifications for ALDI location, as spelled out below, make clear that they locate their shops in the vicinity of people, within cycling distance of homes and residences. ALDI is not meant to be an out-of-town place. ALDIs "pop up right in your neighborhood." It is where you live, with 20.000 cars at the next intersection, and plenty of customers living within 3 miles. "Dense trade area population" they call it, with plenty of potential cyclists, no doubt.



If you come into our neighborhoods for "convenient access to population", then it is definitively a good idea to cater for the most sustainable mode of neighborhood transport. Do these sites plan for cycling shoppers? Do they have a policy which spells out how bicycles are parked effectively and safely? Have they thought about pedestrian and bicycle access routes? Have they raised bicycle facilities with the local planners? Or do ALDI and their architects only plan for shoppers driving cars?

ALDI has a quite respectable Corporate Responsibility Policy. They mount solar panels on their roofs in Germany, and do lots of good stuff elsewhere. But that special moment when a big chain enters a state like California, that special moment should be grasped now. Then ALDI can become the first bicycle perfect grocery chain. With high quality bicycle parking. Because cycling is good for the environment, in California and elsewhere.