People in cities are in a difficult situation. City living discourages ownership of a car but when buying a bulky object it is difficult to get it from store to home on normal mass transportation and delivery services are frequently so expensive as to discourage purchase. Some objects, like large furniture, require truck delivery whatever the expense but intermediate sized objects are frequently put on subways or stuffed into cabs with great difficulties and objections by other passengers or refusal by the driver. Perhaps it would be possible to have buses or special subway cars for moving large sized objects at much lower expense than hiring a van or small truck.
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Around here we have a company named U-Haul which leases moving vans and trailers, any size you want, for as little as $19.99 a day. Move a couch or a whole house of stuff, whatever you want, no problem. All you need is someone to volunteer to lift the other end.
U-Haul might be useful for a planned purchase where the $19 is a small percentage of the cost of the item but a bulky single or multiple purchase bought on the spur makes all the arrangement necessary to discover a source of rental and retrieving the rented vehicle an extremely clumsy process in contrast to taking the stuff to a bulk mass transport system with a regular schedule.
It seems to me that the expense of maintaining such a system would be large compared to the income generated by users of the system. Many folks using mass transportation do not have a large amount of disposable income to purchase items in need of transportation, but, no doubt, there are some and a solution should be examined. Perhaps a better idea would be to allow large items to be transported at times that the system is not crowded with riders. You would pay an additional fee for carrying on the item and since the vehicle was pretty much empty at that time you would not cramp, or annoy, anyone.
Publig large item transport is something that public mass transit should not be in, they have a hard enough time trasnporting people at it is.
Most retailers would have shipping arrangements, or one could easily hire a commercial or private truck.
For a commercial or industrial establishment, it would be possible for them to lease train space to transport goods, but it would require sidings and things be installed.
On a subway system it would require merely that an extra freight car be added to a normal train. Buses would provide a small section in the rear for floor space for a large package. Not much expense.
Here we don't have subways. The nearest bus route to my house is 4/10ths of a mile away. The bus cannot detour from it's route. I would say it is the same situation for a majority of the people who live here (metropolitan area of about 120,000).
So even if the bus was so equipped to move my large stuff I would still be facing the prospect of moving it form the closest bus stop to my front door. For convenience sake alone I will opt for retailer delivery, U-Haul, or getting help from one of my friends who own a big enough vehicle.
You are right about the business, crowded cities can become hard to stand mostly when you see that living in a big city is not making your life any easier. I too agree that a business whit special subway cars wold work really nice.Contemporary bedroom furniture