New distribution facilities aimed toward curbing supply truck visitors on New York Metropolis’s residential streets will open later this 12 months, the Division of Transportation introduced Thursday.
“New Yorkers are receiving extra deliveries than ever earlier than, and we’re pursuing artistic methods to make these deliveries cleaner, safer, and extra environment friendly by lowering the variety of supply vans on our roads,” DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez stated in a press release.
The so-called “microhubs” will present momentary parking for big supply vans and permit packages to be transferred to smaller, cleaner autos — akin to cargo bicycles, electrical vans, and even hand vans — for supply to residential clients, in keeping with the DOT plan mandated by City Council legislation passed in 2021.
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Decreasing supply vans on metropolis streets will make pedestrians and supply employees safer and scale back emissions, DOT officers stated.
Residential supply visitors has spiked within the metropolis because the begin of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a city Transportation Department report released Thursday.
In 2019, 60% of deliveries in New York Metropolis had been made to business clients, with 40% of deliveries made on to residents. However Transportation Division information present that some 80% of deliveries citywide at the moment are made to residential addresses, the company report says.
Over 80% of New Yorkers have had a bundle delivered to their residence previously week, the DOT says.
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An company spokesperson instructed the Every day Information that the distribution hubs are anticipated to be constructed over the summer season, with the aim of getting at the very least one in operation by the autumn. The division plans as many as 20 microhubs in a pilot program.
The places for the hubs haven’t but been decided, the spokesperson stated, however the company is seeking to find them near established trucking routes and inside attain of public transit and metropolis bike lanes. Hubs are deliberate for Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx.
The DOT has been growing the hubs in session with logistics and supply corporations, the spokesperson stated. These firms will proceed to be liable for the ultimate leg of supply below the microhub plan.
The division’s proposal acknowledges the excessive price of New York Metropolis actual property among the many challenges dealing with the plan — in addition to the necessity to construct out better charging infrastructure for electrical vans and cargo bicycles.
Moreover, state regulation at the moment caps the width of cargo bikes at 36 inches — a limitation Transportation Division officers have stated they oppose.
A invoice introduced forth by state Sen. Jessica Ramos (D-Queens) in January would increase the maximum allowable width of electrically-assisted cargo bikes to 48 inches in return for limiting their prime velocity to 12 mph and banning them from bike lanes in public parks. The laws would additionally require those that pilot the bigger powered cargo bikes to be insured.
Two earlier makes an attempt to move legal guidelines permitting bigger electrical cargo bikes failed to achieve the governor’s desk.
