Amazon truck culture dominates public streets for people

 

 

 NY Post

It’s the “law” of the concrete jungle.

Amazon delivery drivers who cause traffic chaos when they commandeer huge stretches of Big Apple streets are getting more brazen, with one claiming that cops gave them license to do so.

“The [NYPD] … said it’s OK to double park here,” said driver Shawn Evans from a frenzied “mobile distribution hub” — a euphemism for the mammoth trucks that double and triple park while workers scurry to unload their contents onto cluttered streets and sidewalks.

Evans said he had been unloading at his location along Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side for more than three hours with a truck containing “1,500 … 1,600” items.

“The NYPD does not allow Amazon delivery vehicles to double park or violate any parking regulations,” a department spokesman countered. “If these vehicles are observed in violation, a summons is issued.”

Evan’s truck was not an outlier. The Post found at least four Amazon delivery trucks hogging up sections of Columbus this week. Some Amazon employees confirmed they had been double-parked for hours.

Many of the the trucks are surrounded by what appear to be city traffic cones — but actually belong to Amazon, multiple delivery men said.

The problem is not unique to the Upper West Side. With its ultra high-density high-rises, the Upper East Side is also uniquely susceptible to Amazon delivery jams. Last November the City Council passed a bill aimed at curbing the issue by introducing loading-only parking spots in affected neighborhoods — but so far results have been limited.

“It is like Whac-A-Mole,” said Manhattan Councilwoman Gale Brewer, adding that trucks would move from one location after a complaint to another. The veteran lawmaker says she has gotten at least 20 constituent complaints about the issue this year.

“It’s an endless challenge,” she said.

Problem with wrong solution

From the Queens Chronicle:

Between 47th and 50th streets on Skillman Avenue, several trucks double-parked to unload — sometimes three trucks in a row — but traffic moved smoothly and residents did not seem to notice their presence early Tuesday morning.

However, a resident at the Community Board 2 meeting on June 7 said the truck traffic has become an issue, causing unwanted noise and air pollution.

Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) has been working on alleviating the problem.

“Queens Boulevard and Northern Boulevard are not too far away, and those roads are more appropriate for that kind of traffic,” he said Tuesday.

Van Bramer said he has reached out to the Department of Transportation asking them to place a “No Truck Route” sign at an appropriate location. He said his office has also contacted the 108th Precinct and the Queens North Traffic Enforcement Division with the hope of improving policing and traffic enforcement in the area.

A DOT spokesperson said in an email, “The truck routes and rules for truck activity are set forth in the City’s Traffic Rules, and no portion of Skillman Avenue is a designated truck route.”

If the problem is double parked trucks making deliveries, how will a "no truck route" sign help, Jimmy?

Clogging up College Point Blvd

"Hello,
First of all -- love your blog.

This may or may not be fodder for a future installment, but, I'd love to know why the businesses along College Point Blvd just outside of College Point -- under the Flushing bridge and near the lumber yard -- are able to double -park day in and day out with their cement trucks and other heavy equipment vehicles and completely clog up the busy road while people like yours truly are trying to get to work. They have their entire industrial property to use while they get their trucks ready. Unless they are paying the city and are under some CP Blvd road-leasing agreement, this has really got to stop. I and my fellow commuters have the same right to the road as they do, and there needs to be a massive ticket-issuing operation so this practice will stop. Right now, it seems to just be accepted/ignored.

Thanks-
anonymous"

Reprieve from double parking tickets?

From the NY Post:

Drivers desperate for parking spots would get a reprieve under a City Council proposal to legalize double parking in certain situations, The Post has learned.

Three members this week are introducing a bill that would permit double parking for drivers waiting for a soon-to-be-vacated space or dropping off or picking up passengers.

The sponsors of the legislation say their push aims to curb a double-parking ticketing blitz that is infuriating their constituents.

The city has given an increasing number of double-parking tickets each year under Mayor Bloomberg -- from 806,112 in fiscal year 2002 to more than 1.3 million in the last fiscal year.

Gentile, who represents Bay Ridge -- an area where parking spots are notoriously hard to come by -- lamented that some of his constituents have been slapped with the $115 double-parking fine for simply stopping by a doctor's office to drop off a spouse before circling the block for a legal spot.

"They're going around and playing gotcha with people," he said of ticketing agents, who work for the NYPD.

From the NY Post:

Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday he sympathizes with New Yorkers weary from double-parking tickets, but balked at the notion that ticketing agents only dole out the fines to collect revenue.

"We don't have a 'gotcha!' " mentality. We try to enforce the law and we get some revenues," he said.

Still, he said, he is "very sympathetic" to those who get the $115 violations.