NYC Plans Six Shipping Hubs to Ease E-Commerce Congestion

E-commerce deliveries are clogging the streets of New York City, so NYC is planning to expand maritime shipping in a strategy it’s calling Blue Highways.

The city is hoping to shift the freight transported by more than 6,200 short-haul trucks to barges that will dock at six new maritime shipping hubs on NYC’s waterfront.

NYC’s Economic Development Corp. (EDC) has issued a request for proposals from engineering firms to design barge landings and access points where e-bikes and small delivery vehicles can pick them up for last-mile delivery, according to a report in Gothamist.

The new maritime shipping hubs are planned for the McGinnis Cement Terminal in the Hunts Point neighborhood in the Bronx.; Stuyvesant Cove, adjacent to StuyTown; Pier 36 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side; the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in the Financial District; and the 23rd Street basin and 29th Street apron on Brooklyn’s Gowanus Bay.

“Overreliance on trucks negatively impacts air quality, traffic, quality of life and safety,” the RFP stated. EDC estimates that its plan will eliminate 92M miles of truck travel every year-that’s nearly a one-way trip to the Sun-and the use of more than 8M gallons of fuel.

Three years ago, the city published a report estimating that more than 2.7M e-commerce packages would be delivered in NYC every day in 2024. While the Blue Highways plan no doubt will reduce truck congestion on city streets, it’s a trade-off that won’t immediately reduce pollution from diesel fuel, a local conservation group noted.

“Like most on-road transportation, freight boats run on some of the dirtiest fuels in the market,” said Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters, in a statement.

“The only way to meet our emissions reduction goals is by passing a clean fuel standard at the state level, which would put a serious dent in our emissions output and result in cleaner air for New Yorkers on day one,” Tighe said.

The city also is hoping the Blue Highways plan can restore some of the waterfront jobs that have been lost in recent decades as large container ports were consolidated in New Jersey, with the lion’s share of the goods getting driven across the Hudson River in trucks.

In his State of the City address last month, Mayor Eric Adams proposed creating a Department of Sustainable Delivery to manage the thousands of trucks, vans, e-bikes and mopeds that are making e-commerce deliveries in NYC.

The city estimates there are about 65,000 delivery workers in NYC and nearly 50,000 of them don’t use cars. The new department proposed by Adams would oversee delivery services provided by companies including Amazon, GrubHub and DoorDash using methodology similar to the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission.

A new agency could require all delivery drivers and e-bike riders to have city IDs and have their routes tracked. Companies shipping goods would be required to use dispatchers and submit data on the speed and routes of deliveries to ensure traffic laws are observed.