NYC officials eye waterway barges, cargo bikes to reduce trucks on streets

Barges and cargo bikes are key to reducing the number of diesel-burning trucks on New York’s streets, city officials said on Tuesday.

The city transportation department unveiled three new curbside “microhubs” on the Upper West Side that offer parking spaces for cargo bikes operated by select delivery companies. Officials said they’re an early step toward making the city’s booming package delivery industry more efficient.

And separately, up in the Bronx, city Economic Development Corporation officials said they’re nearly ready to open a barge docking facility near the sprawling Fulton Fish Market in Hunts Point that aims to divert some bulk shipments off local roads and onto waterways.

The Bronx initiative will eliminate more than 1,000 truck trips in the city every month, officials said. And the transportation department said its cargo bike plan should ultimately reduce the distance traveled by trucks on Manhattan streets.

“In many ways this is back to the future, literally,” Economic Development Corporation President Andrew Kimball said at a news conference. “For hundreds and hundreds of years … we moved goods by water every day in the city, whether it was construction materials or food, and that is what we are going to realize through this project. So today’s project is not just a win for the economy, our environment, but also for food security.”

The barge dock will initially launch in the next few weeks as a temporary facility, according to Con Agg Global, the Bronx-based logistics company that’s partnering with the city on the initiative. The company plans to eventually run two barges out of Hunts Point: one for food, and one for construction materials. They’ll run between the Bronx waterfront terminal and other shipping ports like those in Newark, officials said.

The barges are part of the city’s “Blue Highways” initiative, which aims to convert several waterfront facilities, including the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, into delivery hubs. The program’s goal is to reduce the amount of freight moving on the city’s congested streets. DOT officials estimate the amount of goods moving through New York City will grow nearly 70% over the next 20 years.

The Blue Highways plan also includes plans to refit the waterfront ports to allow more “last-mile” deliveries, which would add space for cargo bikes to make more delivery pickups from the waterfront barges as a way to reduce pollution and traffic from trucks.

Dariella Rodriguez, community development director of The Point Community Development Corporation in Hunts Point, said the implementation of the barge and micromobility deliveries will help the asthmatic population in the surrounding community. The South Bronx has the city's highest rates of asthma among children, according to city health department data.

“One of the biggest issues that we actually deal with has 100% to do with air quality,” Rodriguez said. “So being able to remove trucks off the road, not only makes our streets safer for crossing and walking and getting to our parks, but it also makes our air cleaner.”