NYC’s Waterfronts Are Getting A Makeover For The E-Commerce Age

As traffic-clogged roads slow down New Yorkers, the city government is looking to a new way to get e-commerce products to their buyers.

New York City is planning six new waterfront shipping hubs to handle e-commerce deliveries, according to a Request For Proposals issued Friday by the New York City Economic Development Corp.

The plan would see some cargo shift part of its journey from freight trucks on highways to barges on waterways as part of Mayor Eric Adams’ “Blue Highways” initiative.

The RFP is for engineering firms capable of designing barge landings as well as access points for e-bikes and small vehicles for last-mile delivery. The six locations where the NYCEDC is seeking expertise span Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.

In two waterfront parking lots — the McGinnis Cement Terminal in the South Bronx’s Hunt’s Point neighborhood and the 23rd Street Basin in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Bay — the NYCEDC proposes installing a landing barge and a gangway for uses including delivery of food and beverage cargo.

The NYCEDC is looking to make similar moves at the marina in Stuyvesant Cove, close to a NYC ferry terminal, and at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport for a mix of last-mile distribution, microdistribution and other cargo.

The proposal is also seeking help adding fendering and cleats to Manhattan’s Pier 36 for last-mile delivery and to the 29th Street apron in Gowanus Bay for bulk food cargo.

The six sites were identified in October 2022. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration provided the NYCEDC with a $5M grant for the project.

While the original RFP stated that the initiative could lead to the removal of more than 6,000 short-haul trucks from NYC’s streets and 92 million miles of truck travel slashed, a city spokesperson said those numbers were published in error.

“Due to a clerical error in estimating the reduction in truck miles traveled within the marine highway project request for proposal, NYCEDC is currently working with our partners in the federal government to correct that figure and update the analysis using new market data points acquired since the original MARAD grant submission," NYCEDC's spokesperson said.

“The growth of e-commerce and population are expected to drive demand for freight volume in coming years,” the NYCEDC’s RFP reads. “The City’s overreliance on trucks negatively impacts air quality, traffic, quality of life, and safety.”

While moving freight traffic to NYC’s rivers and waterways would address some of these issues, they won’t fix all of them, New York League of Conservation Voters President Julie Tighe said in a statement reported by Gothamist. 

“Like most on-road transportation, freight boats run on some of the dirtiest fuels in the market,” she said. “The only way to meet our emissions reductions goals is by passing a clean fuel standard at the state level, which would put a serious dent in our emissions output.”

CORRECTION, FEB. 13, 6:30 PM E.T.: This story has been updated to reflect that the city retracted its estimates for how much truck travel would be reduced as a result of the new shipping hubs.