NYC NOW - March 4, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

The Brooklyn NAACP is suing New York City and the State Boards of Elections for what's called the “line-warming ban” that prohibits giving food or water to people waiting in line to vote. Finally, as a way to move more freight on boats as a way to reduce the number of delivery vehicles on the roads, New York City brass recently announced plans for six waterfront sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx that will become maritime shipping hubs. WNYC’s Sean Carlson speaks with Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi about the city’s plans.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, March 4th. There's the midday news from Michael Hill. A federal trial to throw out a century-old law that prohibits giving food or water to people waiting in line to vote is underway. The Brooklyn NACP is suing New York City and the State Board of Elections for what it's called the line-warming to prevent people from trying to influence voters at the polls. The NAACP's Eljoy Williams says her organization wants to send a signal to voters that they are welcome at the polls.

Groups like ours can help support you. Maybe give your kid some goldfish so they're not whaling out while you're waiting to vote. Lawyers for the city and states say the law has never been enforced. 56-foot clouds now, mostly clouded. the temperature falling this afternoon to the low of 50s, and then tomorrow rain, a high near 51. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson.

The New York City Department of Transportation says about 90% of goods are moved around the city by truck. Now the city is exploring ways to move more freight on boats as a way to reduce the number of delivery vehicles on the roads. The city recently announced plans for six waterfront sites in Manhattan, in Brooklyn and the Bronx that will become maritime shipping hubs. Joining us to talk more about the city's plans as New York City Deputy Mayor for Operations, Mir Joshi.

Deputy Mayor, thanks for coming on, all things considered. Oh, thanks for having me. And thanks for your interest in blue highways. Yeah, can we talk more about what we mean when we say blue highways and why they would be beneficial to New York? Absolutely. And I want to just step back for a moment and sort of talk about how we got here, you know, especially since the pandemic, as you mentioned,

in your prelude, we've a city that's extremely dependent on deliveries now, groceries, cat food furniture, 90% of our deliveries are by truck. 80% of New Yorkers get a package once a week, and 18% get four or more a week. And our city is literally buckling under the weight of so many deliveries. Congestion pricing is going to be a real barrier for people that are thinking about moving goods and trucks. And we also have to remember that we are coming out of a time when we experienced a supply chain disruption where trucks and moving of goods became a premium. So we really want to look at a different kind of highway because it doesn't make sense to build more roads, nor is it prudent or possible. We don't have the footprint. But we're a city

surrounded by water. And that is an absolute transportation oasis that we need to activate. Now, transit insiders sometimes refer to something called the last mile problem that the city faces with e-commerce deliveries from places like Amazon. What is the last mile and how would blue highways alleviate it? Yeah, there's two steps to alleviating truck traffic. One, bringing the large amounts of goods into New York and then breaking those goods up for the last mile delivery. So blue highways would allow us to take advantage of our peers. You noted the six piers that were activating thanks to federal funds we got from US DOT, but we actually have 200 piers throughout the city.

We have about 500 miles of waterfront. So the last mile is when met at that pier is a cargo bike or a smaller vehicle that can take those packages and take them to their final destination. And when we talk about cargo bikes, it's something we've been supporting in the city, We have about 5 million packages that were delivered last year by cargo bike, and we're looking to really grow that world and both on the infrastructure, so they have the space to deliver and the prevalence of cargo bike as used as a last mile delivery. Now, Deputy Mayor, city leaders have been talking about moving freight on rivers and harbors in New York since at least the De Blasio administration. What are the challenges to implementing the plan? So I think some of the challenges have been the economics and the need.

So there hasn't been until today, I think, a real urgency about moving freight to highways when it comes to New York City. And that's because either we didn't have the volumes that we're seeing today or we didn't feel the need to have an alternate way to move freight. But I go back to sort of COVID and the spur on demand that is not going to dissipate. and our supply chain disruption, which makes logistic companies realize they do need a redundancy. They need another way to move freight around. And so now we're seeing a real interest in blue highways that is greater than we've seen in the past. In fact, we put out a solicitation for companies that are interested in activating our peers. And I think we got many more responses than we anticipated from a wide variety of those in the freight business.

In our last 20 seconds, when does the city hope to have these shipping hubs in operation? Well, as soon as we possibly can, we just put out the RFP to get a contractor to activate two of them. And we'll continue to get our procurements out there. I think people are actively wanting to see this change. And I think it will be a glorious day when we see our active working waterfronts. That was New York City Deputy Mayor for Operations, Mayor Joshi. Thanks so much for coming on. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.