UES to Get Delivery ‘Microhub’ for DOT Pilot Program

As New Yorkers increasingly rely on deliveries, and the small electric vehicles couriers use to drop off food and packages, reimagining the city’s current freight system has become a necessity.

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In response, the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) is preparing to launch a pilot program based around 20 micro distribution hubs, including one in the Upper East Side, in order to meet the demands of e-commerce and curb the environmental and safety impacts associated with large trucks.

On Thursday, members of Community Board 8, which is made up of the neighborhoods encompassing the Upper East Side, discussed the initiative with Huma Husain, the deputy director of NYCDOT’s office of freight mobility, who gave a presentation about the program.

“The freight trends in New York have just really changed quite a bit in the last few years, particularly with the [COVID-19] pandemic, and really flipped the ratio of how many trucks are delivering to our residential streets versus our commercial customers,” Husain said.

A stretch on First Avenue between 89th and 90th streets is where the Upper East Side micro distribution hub, or “microhub,” is expected to be piloted. This area contains a C-Town, a Starbucks and a UPS Store, as well as a handful of small businesses such as Park East Kosher and Mellow Yellow coffee.

“It’s a truck route,” Husain said. “It’s a wide street and along a bike route as well.”

So, what is a microhub? Basically, it’s a space within any public or private right-of-way where goods can be transferred from larger freight vehicles to smaller ones that are low-emission, such as electric vans and e-bikes, or zero-emission like handcarts and bicycles. The goal is to reduce the traffic and pollution by having delivery trucks transfer wares onto smaller, greener modes of transportation at a set location.

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“E-commerce isn’t going away,” Manhattan borough president Mark Levine said in June 2023. “We’ve got to find ways to manage what is increasingly burdening our neighborhoods and presenting environmental and safety challenges.”

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In post-COVID New York, people are not only ordering more packages–roughly two million per day, according to some estimates–but they’re also getting more things delivered to their homes as opposed to an office. According to the DOT, over 80% of New Yorkers receive at least one package per week at home, and approximately 80% of all package deliveries are going to residential customers (it was 60% before the pandemic).

“COVID changed the way we shop,” Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi said in a statement released in April. “This administration is taking a holistic look at green solutions for this very modern challenge with delivery lockers and microhubs…The green revolution starts here.”

The microhub pilot, which was announced in April 2023, was created in response to the passing of Local Law 166 in 2021. In addition to supporting microhub development, it required the DOT to issue a request for expressions of interest (RFEI) from those interested in accessing the microhubs. The legislation went into effect on December 24, 2021.

The pilot program, which is currently in Phase 1, will include 20 locations across the five boroughs; eight companies who responded to an RFEI were chosen to participate, as well. The pilot program is due to officially start this fall.