Residents hope traffic, emissions and noise data they are analyzing with the Guardian will help rein in the spread of e-commerce facilities
“To put more things in here that are going to impact that – that’s what has residents concerned,” Willis said.Increasing delivery traffic will only add to the pollution burden in Red Hook. Microscopic particles from heavy vehicle emissions can settle deep in a person’s lungs, elevating their risk of asthma, heart disease, cancer, late-onset depression and dementia. Elderly people, children and people with existing respiratory conditions are particularly vulnerable.
“What the city is collecting is inadequate,” Alexa Avilés, the New York city councilmember whose district includes Red Hook, told Consumer Reports and the Guardian. “And so community members and civic groups have decided to take that into their own hands.” She said the city needed to pick up the slack – but e-commerce companies like Amazon should be partly responsible for monitoring air quality near their facilities, too.
Electrifying delivery vans will cut down on a large part of particulate emissions, but it won’t eliminate them. Electric vehicles still generate non-exhaust particulate pollution such as brake, tire and road dust – especially heavier delivery vans. For this reason and other safety concerns, city advocates and officials are pushing for alternatives that would decrease the number of trucks and vans on the road altogether, such as cargo bikes.
In Red Hook, two-thirds of the land is zoned for manufacturing, allowing last-mile facilities to pop up unchecked. In these areas, warehouse developers don’t have to ask New York City for permission or solicit input from neighbors before building – they don’t generally need to do traffic studies, or get special applications.
In February, Councilmember Avilés and other city officials promoted a package of eight city proposals and a state bill aimed at curbing harms from last-mile facilities. The proposals would, among other things, require warehouse operators in the city to get a special permit before opening up shop, and submit estimates of how the facilities will affect traffic and air quality. The proposals would also redraw the city’s network of truck routes.
A bill currently in front of the New York state legislature called the Clean Deliveries Act could make New York the first state to do so, if it passes.Sensors sited in three key locations in Red Hook gather several types of data that together help chart the impact of e-commerce delivery traffic: they count trucks and vans, detect particulate pollution and monitor sound levels.
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