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Too many trucks on NYC streets? City launches a pilot program to tackle congestion
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Apr 7, 2023
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By
Stephen Nessen
Published Apr 7, 2023
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This summer the city will begin installing 20 small hubs where big delivery trucks can drop off online orders. Those goods will then be delivered to people’s doors, using low-emission vehicles, handcarts or e-bikes.
The effort is meant to reduce the number of delivery trucks – from companies such as Amazon – on city streets.
“We have to continue reimagining the use of public space,” Ydanis Rodriguez, the city's transportation commissioner, told Gothamist. He added that 80% of New Yorkers are ordering online.
“This is our reality,” Rodriguez said. “And we have to plan around being there for consumers, at the same time to do everything we can to protect our planet.”
The location of these so-called “microhubs” haven’t been announced, but the Department of Transportation reports they were “selected based on proximity to high-density areas with mixed land use.”
Rodriguez said that equity would be a priority, considering that polluted truck routes often go through neighborhoods that are predominantly home to people of color, but added that the city must also consider where the most deliveries are being made.
The need to reduce the amount of truck traffic on city streets has grown more urgent since the COVID-19 pandemic. The DOT finds that more than 80% of New Yorkers get a package delivered to their homes every week, an increase from 40% before the pandemic. And virtually everything in the city is still delivered by trucks.
“Local delivery hubs offer promising potential to reduce the number of large trucks on local streets by providing safe spaces for truck operators to transfer deliveries onto more sustainable modes of transportation,” the DOT wrote in a release on the pilot.
The DOT’s microhub program is part of a 2021 law passed by the City Council. As part of the law, the city is also required to put out a report, which it did this week, which looks at how microhubs have worked in other parts of the country.
Washington, D.C., for example, launched a program in 2019 in which it removed curb parking for vehicles at nine locations and allowed delivery trucks to book delivery times there. The report found that while that reduced double parking in those areas by 64%, the pilot was cut short due to issues with enforcing the rules.
Philadelphia has truck drivers use a parking app so they’re not double parking or looking for a spot. London also experimented with a parking app for drivers and reported that increased drivers’ productivity by 21%.
“Creative ideas that allow for new ways of thinking about deliveries is an important step in creating a more sustainable and efficient transportation network,” Tiffany-Ann Taylor, the Regional Plan Association's vice president for transportation, wrote in a statement.
Starting this summer through 2024, the city will install the 20 microhubs, with the goal of expanding the program over the next three years.
Still, transit advocates like the Riders Alliance's Danny Pearlstein said the city should not only focus on making sure trucks aren’t clogging streets, but also ensure that buses can get around more easily, too.
“The new microhubs are one piece of the puzzle," Pearlstein wrote in an email. "Mayor [Eric] Adams should also prioritize buses and trucks ahead of cars on major routes, like Fordham Road in the Bronx and the BQE in Brooklyn.”
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new york city
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Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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