AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
Cardboard Jungle Deliveries of online purchases are taking a toll on city streets. It turns out that the convenience of
buying anything—toilet paper, toilet brushes, toilets—with a single tap from the comfort of your porcelain throne isn’t without inconvenience in major cities. Because of our online-shopping habits, delivery vehicles are stacking up in urban areas like cardboard boxes in a dumpster. E-commerce has more than doubled in the past decade, growing from 4.6 percent to 10.7 percent of U.S. retail transactions. The corresponding rise in home deliveries—Amazon’s network alone transported more than 3.5 billion packages globally last year—is clogging city streets with trucks that stop frequently and often park illegally. While trucks ZNXR b] $ ]R_PR[a \S a_N¦P V[ ZNW\_ PVaies nationwide, they’re responsible for an outsize 11 percent of congestion, according to the 2019 Urban Mobility Report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. AUR RßRPa` UNcR ORR[ ]_\S\b[Q V[ dense cities like New York. According to a recent New York Times analysis, daily package volume to households in the Big Apple tripled from 2009 to 2017 while the amount of physical space for the ubiquitous white, blue, or brown delivery vehicles remained static. Drivers have
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resorted to taking over street corners with their trucks, sorting packages on sidewalks as they conscript public space for private industry. They don’t always get away with it, though. New York City handed UPS a bill for $33.8 million for ]N_XV[T ¼[R` V[ % N[Q TNcR 3RQ2e \[R for $14.9 million. .[Q Vaµ` YVXRYf a\ TRa d\_`R 3RQ2e expects the number of packages delivered in the U.S. to double by 2026, to 100 million per day, with 90 percent deriving from e-commerce and the overwhelming majority of this volume going to residences. The `\YbaV\[` S\_ _RQbPV[T QRYVcR_f a_N¦P N_R as far-fetched as anything the autonomyand drone-loving tech industry has come up with [see “Thinking outside the Box”]. 3\_ [\d aUR P\Z]N[VR` ZNXV[T N ObPX on the delivery boom are doubling down. 3RQ2e _RPR[aYf Re]N[QRQ Va` _R`VQR[aVNY service to seven days a week and added [RN_Yf cN[` a\ Va` ½RRa N[Q .ZNg\[ has ordered 100,000 electric vans from startup automaker Rivian. But like loosening a belt to cure obesity, having more delivery vehicles only worsens the problem. It guarantees that the cost of shipping remains low and the packages—and the trucks—just keep coming. —Brett Berk
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX — FedEx’s experimental lidar- and cameraequipped electric delivery bot, called Roxo, proposes a future where urban delivery traffic moves from the streets to the sidewalks. Roxo weighs 200 pounds, can carry 100 pounds, and is capable of climbing stairs, making it an outlier among delivery drivers. What’s more, in the suburban town of Christiansburg, Virginia, the company has tested a flying delivery drone, developed with Wing, that drops small packages mere steps from a recipient’s front door.
I L LUST RAT IO N BY RYA N O L BRYSH ~ MAY 2020 ~ CAR AND D RI V ER
