It was all freight all the time in New York City for Earth Day on Tuesday — with no less than two major announcements celebrating efforts to get freight out of big trucks that pollute and make our streets more susceptible to road violence.
Streetsblog reporters spent the morning on the Upper West Side with Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez and in the South Bronx with the quasi-private city Economic Development Corporation.
In the Bronx, city officials celebrated the announcement of a new marine terminal at the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center, part of the city's "Blue Highways" plan to shift freight onto the city's many rivers. On the Upper West Side, Rodriguez and other elected officials celebrated the opening of the city's first three on street "microhub" delivery zones, which repurpose curbside space for large trucks to unload goods onto smaller bikes to make last-mile deliveries. DOT plans to roll out 36 on- and off-street hubs as a pilot over the next few years, which should barely make a dent in the booming demand for delivery.
"Our streets are seeing more trucks than ever before," Rodriguez said. "Freight volumes are expected to grow in our city by 70 percent over the next two decades, so that's our reality. That's where microhubs come in."
Click here to read Dave Colon's report from the Bronx. NY1 and West Side Rag covered the microhubs announcement, as did ABC, amNewYork and Patch.
In other news:
- The AP dove into the Trump Party's transportation revanchism.
- Hell Gate isn't buying DOT's justifications for its anti-daylighting stance.
- From the assignment desk: Delivery workers will rally on Wednesday against Doordash's alleged "cruel and unjust" labor practices. 9:30 a.m. at Doordash HQ at 200 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
- Micah Lasher and Jessica Ramos want New York to withhold money from the federal government if the federal government withholds money from New York. (NY1)
- Four more Eric Adams rezonings could yield another 40,000 new homes this year. (Crain's)
- Three more federal prosecutors resigned in protest of the Trump administration's move to drop charges against Mayor Adams. (NY Times)
- Big real estate is going for Cuomo. (Crain's)
