http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/10/02/fresh-direct-responds-to-environmental-critics/
http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/11/22/fresh-direct-builds-a-grocery-empire-on-free-street-space/

"FedEx/UPS trucks are also guilty but they replace a USPS truck"

USPS sometimes uses carts (and bikes ?) but probably not as much as they should.

I always wonder if some of the anti-FrestDirect attitudes come from people that don't really cook (in which case, every neighborhood has good enough grocery shopping) and probably have a lot of restaurant food delivered in styrofoam packaging, but it's fair to say that version 1.0 of FD's business was built without nearly enough concern for environmental impacts. Their trucks are too big, their drivers are too eager to park in bike lanes, and zero effort is made to consolidate deliveries. Now they are pushing their prepared meals more and more ($$$), so even their slight environmental positive of dealing in mostly basic ingredients is being eroded.

UPS, FedEx, FreshDirect, all big delivery companies that want to keep the corporate brand clean are going to have to rework their NYC distribution operations to depend less on large trucks constantly circling and stopping, using all parts of the street as a diesel-burning warehouse. Deliveries should be bundled for neighborhoods, so the trucks can find a real loading zone (the city will need to make more those) and deliver by cart from there. As customers, we're going to have be a little more flexible in delivery times. As concerned citizens, any time a pedestrian or cyclist is hurt or killed in a situation aggravated by a badly parked corporate truck, we must give them hell. A protest boycot stemming from a crash (if given sympathetic news coverage) would make bad driving and parking too expensive of a business practice.

Why are we afraid to put up barriers to cars? Just put up a curb or jersey barrier and some bollards so the cars have no way of getting in. Problem solved. Maybe you could make it limited access - like the retractable bollards they have at Gov't sites here in DC, in case there's some kind of emergency, or someone gets a permit for a moving van. But there's no reason why a building in the city needs to be accessible by car 24-7; it doesn't.

The fact is that there's no sort of freight that couldn't be delivered in the city by some sort of electrified urban freight rail. The last mile can almost always be handled by some kind of utility cargo trike, postman's bike, etc. There are very few situations that cars and trucks are truely necessary.

On another note does anyone else have a problem with FreshDirect that uses the city street as their warehouse to deliver groceries to homes that are usually close to a supermarket? FedEx/UPS trucks are also guilty but they replace a USPS truck. FreshDirect trucks are noisy and replace the delivery man/bike whatever from a local merchant. What gives?

There are bike lanes and there are bike lanes. Anything that's so narrow that you'll end up in the door zone should basically be ignored in determining lane positioning. Other bike lanes (say, 8th Avenue between 23rd and 57th, the unbuffered segment) are safely usable at speed. I wouldn't want to sneak around a truck that's legally double-parked there, though. Actually, now that it comes up, I would feel safe with this maneuver in a buffered bike lane, like on Hudson/8th below 23rd street.

Apropos of nothing in particular, I noticed that I do tend to go pretty slow in the 9th Avenue cycletrack. Must be the pedestrians that wander in and the bike salmon. Not strictly a bad thing, though!

Matt

Much of NYC was built without off-street loading docks. Unfortunately, even in post-1961 buildings with loading docks, the docks are often obstructed by the parked car of some insider, while trucks load and unload from the street.

If a city simply MUST have a bike lane on a one-way avenue, I propose, as always, this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10798592@N08/1414440531/

If an unloading truck has its wheels in the bike lane, contrariwise, there's now a bike-lane-width strip of pavement in the main roadway that I can use as a through lane which cars cannot, even allowing space for the door zone. I can merge into the auto lane when I see the obstruction looming ahead, but am not obliged to do a partial merge into the next lane over to actually get around, giving me greater freedom to proceed than the motorists behind me have. There are dangers this way, to be sure, and some need to slow down to do this safely, but nothing so extreme or that's likely to catch me by surprise.

Friends of mine take the John Forrester-esque position on bike lanes, that they just confuse things. I don't go quite so far, but the viewpoint does have some good points to make.

One thing that can be done for trucks is to set up special day hours for trucks only on commercial streets so that they aren't double parking everywhere. I won't go into details since they're beyond my expertise.

THERE'S MORE to the "wrong" and "right" of these two pictures than just blocking bike lanes or not!!!!

Look at the "wrong way" picture. Notice that the truck is not only blocking the bike lane, HE'S ALSO BLOCKING THE CAR LANE, EVEN THOUGH HE'S PULLED WAY OVER LIKE A GOOD BOY. A car travelling in that lane would still have to move over, no two ways about it!

In the "right way" picture, of course the truck is blocking the car lane, BUT NO MORE EFFECTIVELY THAN IN THE "WRONG WAY" picture.

So, end result: "wrong way," obstructs bikes AND cars. "Right way," ONLY obstructs cars, and not even any more than in the "wrong way!"

Also, the "right way" does not force cyclists to weave dangerously into and out of visibility, or deal with TWO dooring zones instead of one.

However, sadly, THE ONLY WAY the message of this illustration will reach ANY motorists is if THE BIKE LANE CONTAINS A TEXT MESSAGE,

"Double park THERE -->"

(arrow pointing out of bike lane, to car lane)

The thing is, motorists pull over into the bike lane because *they think they're doing the right thing by pulling all the way over.* They know they're not supposed to double park, but they think that the farther over they pull, the more they minimize the offense. Folks, they don't see the bike lane as any different from the car lane. They're just trying, the wrong way, to keep out of the way. They're not evil anti-bike monsters. Narrow class 2 lanes are.

The picture is pretty much the same one I presented in a letter to the Midtown North Precinct after the City put in the unbuffered bike class 2 bike lane on 8th Ave. in Manhattan, and Midtown North cops began parking directly in it.
(e.g., http://www.flickr.com/photos/10798592@N08/2073246818/)

I explained it to them, very carefully. I did not just say "hey don't park in the bike lane." I said that I understand that they, and delivery trucks often HAVE TO double park. And I explained that I was offering them a better way to double park.

ALL THEY HEARD, no matter how clear I tried to be, was just some bike jerk saying "don't park in the bike lane." Which was not what I was saying. So again,

THE ONLY WAY the message of this illustration will reach ANY motorists is if the bike lane itself CONTAINS THE TEXT,

"Double park THERE -->"

Until that happens, cyclists are just going to keep pointlessly complaining about class 2 lanes, which are, in my oft-expressed opinion, fatally flawed by design.