Parcel delivery will help reduce traffic and clear the air

The city that never sleeps should wake up to the idea of late night parcel delivery to help reduce traffic and clear the air.

Imagine if a big chunk of FedEx, UPS, Amazon and other delivery trucks were off the street during the busiest time of the day. Right now, we are strangled by traffic and choking on pollution from cars and trucks. Our leaders should muster their wits and their courage to explore every idea to address this problem.

A perfect place to start with a pilot program of overnight delivery is Battery Park City, a compact community of about 30 residential and commercial buildings, all six stories or higher, in Lower Manhattan. Every building has 24-hour doorman or concierge service. So the staff working between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., normally the slowest shifts, can sign for package delivery and notify building residents or businesses that a package is waiting. Parcel storage rooms and systems for automatic notification already are in place.

The delivery companies benefit because they’re not paying drivers to sit in traffic. As a further incentive, police and traffic agents could be more aggressive with tickets during the day and more forgiving at night. In fact, there are few, if any, traffic agents working the overnight shifts. The delivery trucks also could avoid congestion pricing tolls, or pay reduced tolls.

If the overnight delivery idea works in Battery Park City, it can be extended to the nearby Financial District, home to some of the narrowest streets and most severe delivery challenges in the city.

In a typical apartment or condo building, the daytime concierge is scrambling to keep up with the flood of deliveries. The overnight concierge is struggling to stay awake. Residents, building owners, elected officials, police, delivery companies and worker representatives, such as 32BJ SEIU can work together to determine the best hours between 7 p.m. at the end of the evening rush hour, and 6 a.m., the start of the morning rush.

They can identify neighborhoods, such a Battery Park City, where overnight delivery has the most likelihood of success. Once a neighborhood is identified, there would be an education campaign so residents and businesses know what to expect and to prepare staff and in-house procedures. And once overnight delivery begins in a neighborhood, the city would have to measure its effectiveness.

There are plenty of working men and women in this city who would prefer a night shift so they could divide child care responsibilities with their partner. As someone who worked nights for many years, I met a whole community of people doing just that. We got to spend precious time with our kids that a typical nine-to-fiver never does. And all of us benefit because extra activity adds to street safety during the night. The presence of delivery workers is a deterrent.

Late-night/early-morning delivery works in other cities. I was doing it in Philadelphia in 1966, when my college summer job was with Great Bear Spring Co., delivering five-gallon water bottles. When we serviced Center City, the most congested part of the city, we worked from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Of course this is bigger than water bottles. Thousands of residential and office buildings in this city are served by hundreds of thousands of trucks delivering packages. Overnight delivery is an idea that began in the 19th century, when the milkman with his horse-drawn carriage left glass bottles on the stoop. And when was the last time you saw a newspaper delivery truck? They’re off the street before morning rush hour begins.

Will impatient New Yorkers have to wait for packages? It’s a wash. If a package gets to a delivery center by 6 a.m. Tuesday, it gets on a truck and gets delivered Tuesday. With late night delivery, the package gets delivered late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. If a package gets to a delivery center after 6 a.m. Tuesday, then it probably won’t be delivered until Wednesday. With late night delivery, that package gets delivered Tuesday night or before dawn Wednesday.

Congestion pricing is coming. Global warming is here. We must stretch our imaginations and deal with the traffic that is choking the economic life — and the real life — out of our city.

The Battery Park City Authority, Community Board 1 and City Councilman Christopher Marte should get this pilot program rolling so we can show the rest of the city how it’s done.

Smith, a 20-year resident of Battery Park City, worked nights at newspapers in New York and Philadelphia. His summer job in college was as a delivery truck driver.