The person who submitted this post has asked to remain anonymous. The content has been lightly edited for clarity.
It would be great if my local restaurant owner could utilize the space on West 83rd off Amsterdam for some additional outdoor dining to help his business. He can’t because the block’s parking zoning was change around 15 years ago to “No Standing Anytime” so that local Ladder 73 would always be able to drive through.
I used to park my car there so I remember when they rezoned it and I understood the reasoning. What I don’t understand is why the same “No Standing” regulations aren’t followed now.
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For the last 6 months, Fresh Direct trucks have been pulling up daily at 7am and staying until 10pm (and sometimes midnight). They offload groceries non-stop, seven days a week. You’ll hear the hydraulics of the truck early Sunday morning as it starts the process of off-loading products. They take up a third of the block – parked in a “No Standing” zone – and they’re generally positioned squarely in front of the one fire hydrant on the block, creating yet another hazard for Ladder 73.
I understand these trucks need to have a place to park so that they can deliver to local residents, but it shouldn’t require turning residential blocks into full time commercial loading zones. Even industrial neighborhoods which are zoned for commercial vehicles to park LEGALLY don’t generally allow them to do so seven days a week from 7AM-Midnight.
Fresh Direct should locate and identify enough locations where they can facilitate their ability to deliver to customers without monopolizing any one block day after day and month after month. I’d have no issue with this one day a week, but seven days a week for months on end doesn’t seem right to me.
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Horrific. Get 7 on your side? Alert the media?
What did Helen Rosenthal have to say when you emailed her about it?
LOL!
Cyrus;
Glad you got the joke.
Counterpoint: Yes, every street should have neighborhood loading zones that are extensive enough to support the constant influx of loading. Eliminate on street parking on most streets to achieve this, and convert low-value usage (a few people storing their $50k vehicles for free on the curb) with a high-value use (zones for deliveries to be made in a more organized and safe way).
Jeff:
Overnight parking on the street was in fact illegal in Manhattan until approximately 1950.
It’s something to consider reinstating. BUT it will not mean every street is then a daytime loading/unloading zone.
My vehicle only cost me $20k. And streets are generally built for motor vehicle usage. “Low value?” By whose pretentious standards? You know what I use my car for? Getting to places that don’t have mass transit options, on a schedule that fits my tax-paying lifestyle. (Oh, and by the way, if you’re bent over people with $50k vehicles, chances are they’re paying a tidy sum in taxes themselves.) You know what I do that de-necessitates a grocery delivery truck? I walk to the grocery store when I need to buy groceries (with a backpack so I don’t have to use any new bags). You know what I don’t do?: have 8 zillion Amazon packages a week delivered to my apartment in lieu of walking to CVS, or whatever other store that most assuredly can provide those products somewhere in the city. Get over your self-absorbed anti-car rhetoric and start looking at the ridiculous lifestyles of having to have everything catered to you by some delivery service.
NIMBY,
You propose no real alternatives. In fact you contradict your position on safety by saying it would be OK for them to park in the no standing zone (and presumably block the hydrant too) one day a week.
I will propose a real solution. Every block in NYC should have a commercial loading zone. These would also be used by USPS, Amazon, UPS etc. The only thing blocking this proposal is people who commandeer the public streets to store their personal belongings (a.k.a. cars.)
I have also been impacted by this issue. I agree that one day a week on rotating blocks would be tolerable (and much more fair),
Convert free street parking into commercial parking.
Josh,
The private management of public spaces is bad idea.
The city should consider banning overnight street parking in Manhattan; that was the law until 1950.
Referencing anything that was “a thing” back in 1950 is beyond irrelevant in 2021.
I have been wondering about the 83rd Street situation for years. I was on CB7 when the left lane of 83rd between Amst and Bway was designated no parking so that the fire trucks could get through. Yet not too long thereafter, it became a place for school buses and private vehicles to sit while waiting for children to come out of the museum, a loading zone for 222W83 and other buildings, and now, as mentioned, a place for Fresh Direct to work.
That lane MUST be kept clear. A delay of even a moment or two for an emergency vehicle to get through could literally be the difference between life and death – for a victim in an ambulance or a person in a fire.
I lived on this block for two years starting May 2019. It is an absolute nightmare. What the author leaves out is that, prior to the arrival of the Fresh Direct trucks, the so-called “fire lane” was regularly used as overflow parking for the Hertz/Thrifty car rental up the street. They’d dump the returns there and go back to find them using the remote car alarms. Every Sunday was car alarms all day long.
Here’s a solution — turn it back to street parking. The lane is never clear for the fire trucks anyhow, and the police don’t seem to give a shit about it. So, make it a free-for-all like all the other streets. It’ll be no more a public safety hazard than it is currently. And at least the private vehicles won’t be running hydraulic lifts and generators, or firing car alarms all day long. That would mean a lot to the people who live on that block.
Look at the loading zones on West End Ave and you’ll see they aren’t used. The UPS, Fed Ex, etc drivers pull up double parked alongside cars. Sometimes immediately north or south of the loading zones.
Why? If they park curbside they’ll get double parked in by other delivery trucks.
Fresh Direct and Amazon trucks that utilize the streets as distribution centers while undercutting our grocers and retailers present obvious problems and the City needs a real solution, not an excuse to ban cars.
When I was moving into one of the buildings on this block, I called 311 to report/inquire about the situation. They referred it to the local precinct… which promptly closed the issue ticket as ‘without merit/not an issue. Huh??
I have seen Fresh Direct workers pile food delivery boxes all over the bench at the bus stop on Columbus Ave. between 92 and 91st. No one can actually sit down because stacks of boxes take over the entire space meant for sitting.