The booming internet economy is delivering more than 1.5million packages to New York City every day, with trucks double-parking and clogging major roads, research has found.
UPS, Fedex, FreshDirect and Peapod trucks last year totted up 515,000 summonses for parking violations in the city – up 28 percent on five years before – totaling fines worth $27million.
The George Washington Bridge is the main thoroughfare for delivery vehicles and is one of the busiest junctions in the country, with traffic speeds down 10 percent on five years ago.
Meanwhile, Amazon is building two million square space of storage space in New York, as well as a warehouse which will be the largest of its kind in the US, according to the New York Times.
Amazon is building two million square space of storage space, as well as a warehouse which will be the largest of its kind in the US (pictured: a delivery man pushes a cart laden with Amazon delivery boxes in New York City)
The e-commerce retailer hopes that by bringing storage closer it can reduce its margins on the the costly and competitive so-called ‘last-mile.’
Another five warehouses are anticipated in New York and over the summer Amazon opened last-mile facilities in the Bronx and in Queens.
The average number of daily deliveries in the city trebled from 2009 to 2017 to more than 1.1million, according to the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems.
‘It is impossible to triple the amount,’ José Holguín-Veras, the center’s director told the NYT, ‘without paying consequences.’
The number of households doing their shopping on websites like Amazon continues to rise due to convenience and lower prices and as demand increases, so to does the company’s drive to fulfill orders.
Amazon is now pushing for one-day deliveries for all of its Prime members for the holiday season, with an estimated spending package of $1.5billion to make that happen.
To do that, it’s adding more workers in its warehouses and expanding its shipping network with more trucks, jets and package sorting facilities.
‘It’s a big investment,’ said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, in a statement. ‘And it’s the right long-term decision for customers.’
The NYT found that private businesses and couriers are also filling the streets with traffic which often lacks oversight and even awareness from city officials.
UPS, Fedex, FreshDirect and Peapod trucks last year totted up 515,000 summonses for parking violations in the city – up 28 percent on five years before – totaling fines worth $27milion
‘In this period of tremendous growth in the city’s population, jobs, tourism and e-commerce, our congested streets are seeing ever more trucks,’ Polly Trottenberg, the city’s transportation commissioner, told the paper. ‘The city is experimenting with enforcement and creative curb management initiatives to address this growing challenge.’
Not only do the trucks congest roads, but residents have complained about delivery men stacking and sorting their shipments on the sidewalk and treating public space like a warehouse.
Most people’s letter boxes are not large enough to accommodate many of the packages sent for and condominium lobbies are dealing with waves of parcels from dawn til dusk.
An average building with 800 apartments will receive 120 packages a day, the NYT reports, and those without storage capacity are left to simply stack them in the lobby.
There are also fears for the environment due to the amount of emissions created by so many vehicles on the road.
UPS told the NYT they had consolidated packages and were using less trucks than previously.
There are also fears for the environment due to the amount of emissions created by so many vehicles on the road (pictured: a UPS natural gas vehicle in downtown Los Angeles)
And Fedex said they always strove to obey parking laws but admitted that built-up metropolitan areas posed a challenge.
New York is investing $100million to encourage freighters to use water and rail lines in a bid to reduce road congestion, the Times reported.
And this month new priorities on a major downtown road were granted to buses and trucks.
