Manhattan Borough President Candidate Mark Levine Unveils Plan to Fix our Broken E-Commerce Delivery System

Read our exclusive in Streetsblog NYC here.

Borough President Candidate Mark Levine today announced his Green Delivery Plan, an effort to create a sustainable package delivery system in Manhattan by taking delivery vans and trucks off the street, and thereby reducing carbon emissions and vehicle congestion.

Major e-commerce giants and delivery companies struggle to find enough loading zones and parking space to accommodate their delivery operations. As a result, delivery companies frequently use bike lanes, bus lanes, and sidewalk space to unload and sort their packages for delivery, causing congestion on city streets and sidewalks, and disrupting neighborhoods.

The plan emphasizes reducing the impact of e-commerce on New York City streets, pushing deliveries to off-street locations like parking garages, developing a program for green loading zones, and encouraging the use of e-bikes rather than vans and commercial trucks.

Get package sorting and unloading off the street: Mark is proposing the creation of an off-street unloading and delivery program, which will create a process to allow private parking garages to rent street-level parking space to e-commerce delivery companies. Delivery companies would be able to deliver packages to parking garages overnight, and warehouse, sort, and store them to be delivered by bike or foot the following day.

Put Green Loading Zones in every neighborhood: Mark will work with the Department of Transportation and local community boards to develop a Green Loading Zone program, which will identify locations to place green loading zones that will only be available to electric vehicles and micro-mobility delivery methods. This will encourage companies to utilize sustainable delivery fleets, thereby taking cars, vans, and trucks off our streets.

50% e-bike delivery distribution by 2026: Mark will work with the Department of City Planning, the Department of Transportation, and community and e-commerce stakeholders to develop a plan to get to 50% of packages delivered across Manhattan via e-bike in the next five years. This includes identifying locations for bike delivery distribution, working to build out a robust protected bike lane network, installing delivery corrals and bike parking with charging capabilities throughout the borough, and designing incentive programs to encourage reductions in carbon emissions.

The Green Delivery Plan is part of Mark’s full transit agenda, which includes:

• Making buses free–permanently: Last year’s short-term experiment in free buses was a clear success, and New Yorkers’ need for buses to get around is only going to increase, as the city continues to open its doors and life returns to normal post-pandemic. With an annual cost of over $1,400 for someone to take the bus just to get to work, taking this money out of the pockets of working people is going to hamper our economic recovery. Mark will advocate making buses free, plain and simple, forever.
• Installing transit signal priority: The best way to encourage New Yorkers to take public transit is ensuring that it’s fast and reliable. Mark will push the City and Department of Transportation to invest in transit signal priority on every bus corridor, helping to speed up our bus network and relieve congestion.
• Creating a residential parking permit system: New York City is the only major US city without a residential parking permit program. This encourages more people to drive in from the suburbs, adds to congestion and air pollution in many neighborhoods, and undermines the quality of life for local residents. Mark will implement a plan that will protect neighborhood parking for residents, while also reducing the reliance on free parking spaces to create more room for pedestrians.