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1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

nytimes.com

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Re: 1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

#161

Post by icebraining »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #121
partisan wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your solution is effectively corporate welfare. The free market should determine whether customers will order packages or not. Also, you are suggesting that the government should provide an easier means for businesses to serve their customers in a way that gives them an advantage over the local businesses that pay local taxes on purchases. The real solution is to make delivery companies pay for the congestion they ca…

100% this. The article is alarmist, but there are no simple solutions here. Why should NYC devote public space to guarantee access for a business model that primarily extracts wealth from the city? Maybe Amazon should lease parking spaces to stage its deliveries, at appropriate rates. It could even install equipment (e.g. mobile pallette depos) that made the delivery process more efficient.

All the GP said is that there should be parking spaces for deliveries, not that they should be free.

Re: 1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

#163

Post by ClumsyPilot »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #90
jacques_chester wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your solution is effectively corporate welfare. The current state of affairs is corporate welfare too. With an added side helping of externalities imposed on other traffic. I think you're touching on the fact that all road surfaces in NYC are a massive net wealth transfer to those who drive on them or (especially) park on them. I agree. Either charge the full economic rate for use of the road, or turn it over to pu…

It's not really corporate welfare, because delivery companies are in competition and the cost savings get passed on to the consumer. It's a subsidy.

People keep repeating "savings get passed to the consumer" truism, but what is your evidence? DHL posts healthy profits, so I allege we are just padding their bottom line.

Re: 1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

#164

Post by jliptzin »

steelframe wrote: post #68
jliptzin wrote: post #66

Last month I was moving out of an apartment in midtown. My entire block, avenue to avenue, is a no standing zone for some reason. The doorman said it was just changed a couple years ago. I rented a moving truck, parked it in a garage for $60 while I finished packing up, moved the truck to the building entrance where UPS/Fedex trucks are constantly parking, put the hazards on and loaded up the truck with my stuff as f…

> how a law-abiding person is supposed to move out of their apartment while not getting a ticket? You can't. Paying tickets when moving in or moving out is just part of the cost of living in midtown.

That seems like crappy policy to me. Next time I'm just going to leave the moving truck parked in the no standing zone all day instead of first paying a $60 garage fee, if I'm going to get a ticket anyway.

Re: 1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

#165

Post by icebraining »

Spooky23 wrote: post #81
Ididntdothis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is that only people or companies with deep pockets can violate the law that way. If you don’t have money for lawyers you have to pay the tickets. That’s how end up with a two class society where some people are above the law.

Oh no, there are plenty of loopholes. It’s actually easier for a shady operator to operate than a legit one, deep pockets or not! Parking tickets are tagged to a car, not the owner. So when you don’t pay in NY, your registration is suspended. Guess what? Bad operators don’t register in NY! (Rental/Lease fleets are registered in Arizona and Indiana, who are “business friendly” for this reason.) Legit companies get a t…

Why doesn't NY just impound the cars that haven't paid?

Re: 1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

#166

Post by ClumsyPilot »

oefrha wrote: post #91
CydeWeys wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advocate for dedicated commercial loading zones. They're not even doing that bare minimum. But it's crucial to point out this simple fact, and I don't think you've quite internalized it yet: Parking illegally in safety infrastructure KILLS PEOPLE . Like, multiple people are dead every year in NYC solely because a vehicle was parked illegally. So regardless of anything else, they should not be doing that. If deliverie…

> Parking illegally in safety infrastructure KILLS PEOPLE. Parking illegally in safe infrastructure has the potential to kill people. But increase in parking violations doesn’t say anything about parking illegally in safety infrastructure. I’ve had my fair share of parking tickets throughout my life but those were things like parking somewhere where I didn’t have a permit (or dumber, I had a permit but the permit was…

So we have half a million violations and complete disregard for the law, but you are saying they are not causing safety issues? You are the one that should be bringing in evidence to support this strange position. If we assume random chance, statistics aren't on your side.

And "potential to kill people" * "millions of people" = "dead people"

Re: 1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

#167

Post by bogomipz »

CydeWeys wrote: post #117
bogomipz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"You don't see too much of that in Manhattan," Uhm ... except for almost every single food delivery person. This has been an issue for a long time now as well: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/city-increase-fines-del... And more recently with electric bikes as well: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/04/19/confronted-with-facts...

Delivery cyclists tend to only use the sidewalk for part of the last block when that's the only way to get to their destination. They're definitely not using the sidewalk for the entire trip; that's way too slow. Especially not on e-bikes!

They use it for a block in each direction - coming and going. Now multiply that by the number of delivery drivers and the number of deliveries and its actually quite constant, especially below 14th st. It's most certainly not necessary as they could just easily dismount on the street in front of the building. And yes often it is e-bikes and these are now the preferred delivery bike.

Re: 1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

#168

Post by bradleyjg »

CydeWeys wrote: post #37
RhysU wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, the streets are dangerous for bicyclists. Is the train and walking serviceable for your commute?

No. It'd take MUCH longer. Cycling, and other micro-mobility solutions like e-scooters, really are an excellent choice for many people's commutes. We just need to take away some of the street space that's been devoted for vehicles (which don't scale properly to a city of this density anyway) in order to enable more of these commutes. And once we get a lot of vehicles off the roads and replaced with much smaller bikes…

> We just need to take away some of the street space that's been devoted for vehicles (which don't scale properly to a city of this density anyway

Don't get me wrong I prefer them to cars, but bikes and especially e- anything are vehicles too and are dangerous and annoying to the pedestrians who are far and away the most efficient users of space.

Re: 1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

#169

Post by ClumsyPilot »

vageli wrote: post #51
CydeWeys wrote: post #5

A few thoughts as a bike commuter in Manhattan who sees this first hand every day: The congestion tax can't come soon enough (and it should have no carve-outs, certainly not for people who live here). We need to get rid of lots of free on-street parking in the city and replace it with loading zones so that taxis/Ubers and trucks have free spaces on every block to conduct their business without blocking travel lanes o…

> And the second solution is make the penalties on trucks meaningful. Have the fine amounts escalate with every violation within a certain period, with no cap (so that a ticket could eventually cost tens of thousands of dollars for a particular scofflaw truck, rather than the current ignorable amount of around a hundred). And tow/confiscate trucks that have enough tickets. Part of the reason these companies can get a…

Every time we fail to keep companies accountable, we reinforce the belief/precedent that there is one law of the rich corporations, and another for everyone else. This is going even beyond that: a company can repeatedly break the law and threaten the city.

Why should the common man respect the law when this keeps happening? Why should he not conclude "if I can steal and get away with it, it's just payback".

Re: 1.5M Packages a Day Bring Chaos to NYC Streets

#170

Post by baroffoos »

crazygringo wrote: post #40

The problem isn't trucks -- obviously, it's hugely more efficient for a single truck+driver to deliver 100's of packages in a single day than for 100's of individual people to spend an hour each going to/from a store, and even worse for congestion if even more than a few are taking individual vehicles. The problem is parking. And the solution is obvious: multiple truck-length parking spaces along each and every block…

No, there should not be street side parking on most streets as this becomes a huge hazard for cyclists with uni students randomly swerving in and out to deliver a pizza or people carelessly swinging doors open to get out of a taxi without looking.

Inside a city, for most kinds of deliveries, it would be more efficient to have people deliver by e-bikes. A bike with a trailer or large bag is an incredibly efficient way to deliver most kinds of items since you can simply pull up to the front door of the place you want to deliver to and unload the items. Sure you still have the issue with very large items but most people aren't ordering a new bed very often at all.

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