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E-Commerce Is Clogging City Streets With Delivery Trucks (citylab.com)
The Atlantic's CityLab describes "a massive surge in deliveries to residential dwellings...creating a traffic nightmare." An anonymous reader quotes their report:
While truck traffic currently represents about 7% of urban traffic in American cities, it bears a disproportionate congestion cost of $28 billion, or about 17% of the total U.S. congestion costs, in wasted hours and gas. Cities, struggling to keep up with the deluge of delivery drivers, are seeing their curb space and streets overtaken by double-parked vehicles, to say nothing of the bonus pollution and roadwear produced thanks to a surfeit of Amazon Prime orders... Often, the box trucks will double-park in a two-lane street if there's no loading zone to pull into, snarling traffic behind them... "The streets were not designed for that kind of activity," says Alison Conway, an assistant professor of civil engineering at the City College of New York.
Scott Kubly, director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, says "With the volume of deliveries, ticketing isn't effective for us in terms of managing the street. UPS and FedEx will just negotiate a lump sum payment for all the tickets they get instead of fighting every ticket"... In 2011 in Washington, D.C., UPS alone received just shy of 32,000 tickets. Instead of adjudicating each ticket, many large cities will strike agreements or introduce programs through which delivery companies can pay off all tickets in one swoop.
The article points out online retails sales have grown 15% every year this decade in the U.S. -- calling it the other side of the "retail apocalypse" that's killing brick-and-mortar stores.
Scott Kubly, director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, says "With the volume of deliveries, ticketing isn't effective for us in terms of managing the street. UPS and FedEx will just negotiate a lump sum payment for all the tickets they get instead of fighting every ticket"... In 2011 in Washington, D.C., UPS alone received just shy of 32,000 tickets. Instead of adjudicating each ticket, many large cities will strike agreements or introduce programs through which delivery companies can pay off all tickets in one swoop.
The article points out online retails sales have grown 15% every year this decade in the U.S. -- calling it the other side of the "retail apocalypse" that's killing brick-and-mortar stores.
The problem here is that a delivery truck will make a stop in the middle of a street not meant for that activity
They need to make their deliveries. I think if the cities are upset about it, they should crack down more on trucks stopping in the middle of the street. Stop issuing cheap tickets, and start issuing expensive ones like $250 per incident, increase the ticket fine per company AND per vehicle based on the number of incidents, And stop negotiating bulk deals.
If unpaid tickets for a company exceeds $2,000, then boot and tow any vehicle owned by their company seen on sight..
When property owners can't get their stuff delivered, they'll make changes to their property, so the trucks have someplace to park that is not in the public right of way.
most larger online retailers do do that already. it's the priority overnight and same day delivery in larger cities that's causing the problems. if people weren't addicted to "gotta have it now", streets would be just fine.
and as far as " ticketing isn't effective" -- TOW, don't ticket. the delivery companies will train their drivers to park legally pretty damn quick. yes, i realize that just adds yet another truck to the street -- but the ends in this case justify the means. $500-1000+ in fees (towing and storage of a truck isn't cheap) per incident plus salary and travel for an executive to pay the fees, produce ownership, registration and insurance documentation (that isn't what is in the impounded vehicle.. cuz impounded, can't access), and pick up the vehicle; plus a day or two or more delay in delivering the contents of the trucks and all the refunds to shippers for failing to meet delivery standard guarantees... oh boy, they'd learn their lesson fast.
... and I doubt Seattle is the only city that has made these choices.
Go visit Tokyo, which has very little street parking. Downtown street parking is wasteful. Streets should be for driving, and parking lots/garages should be for parking. Eliminating street parking frees up lanes for traffic, and cuts down on the number of cars circling the block looking for a space. In SF about 40% of traffic is people looking for parking.
But changing to a more efficient system is difficult because of the politics of parking.
> Huge malls need to die.
Here in Atlanta, the nearby enclosed mall *did* die. It's now warehouses and a film studio. However the large regional "inverted" shopping center (parking in the middle, stores on the perimeter) is doing well. This reflects the change in people's shopping habits. Rather than spending a day wandering an enclosed mall, lugging stuff from store to store, people would rather drive right to the stores they want to visit, load stuff in their car, then move to the next. Less carrying, and faster.
This is all part of the same trend that online shopping and the success of of super-centers reflects. People don't have as much time to shop, so they want to do it faster and more conveniently.
They deliver packages in the daylight because that's when the most people are available to accept packages instead of leaving them outside where they might disappear.
People who work away from home aren't available to accept packages during business hours. The first big courier company to capitalise on this by concentrating on evening delivery will make a fortune.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Interestingly for all the downsides the actual lifestyle doesn't exclude any of those.
- No land or yard of my own is a major benefit. The local park is kept meticulous by the council and is much bigger than the yard in my house in suburbia (currently rented out while I live in the city).
- Sharing walls with neighbours isn't an issue. The only sound that ever comes through is when someone needs to core drill the wall. I've heard that once in the past year. I had more problems in the suburb with noisy neighbours having backyard parties.
- I have friends over for a BBQ all the time. Actually when the sun is out the park is full of people cooking up huge feasts for their friends and families, and when it's cold miserable and raining, well the BBQ turns into an oven roast and they all still come over.
But there's one big on topic thing here:
The only time I ever had problems with deliveries was in suburbia. Multiple parcels stolen from in front of my house, or even better that "I'm sorry we missed you!" card that says please be home during business hours otherwise you can drive some 5km away to pick up your parcel.
Here in an apartment complex, the postie rings through the numbers until someone answers and then leaves me a note saying "Your parcel is with your neighbour at number 71". On the odd occasion where it needs a signature or the building is completely empty, I have 2 UPS parcel points, 3 TNT parcel points, and 3 general post locations within walking distance from my house. The only time this has ever gone wrong is when I walked to the wrong TNT parcel point (It said a certain brand of petrol station, but I didn't realise there were two petrol stations of the same brand so close).
As a member of team inner city living, I too now like not having a problem getting things delivered to me.