Mayor Bill de Blasio’s forthcoming “congestion plan” to address gridlock in the city will include new commercial delivery regulations, the mayor said Tuesday.
“That’s certainly going to be one of the issues we have to consider — is how we handle deliveries in the city,” said de Blasio at a Vision Zero news conference in Brooklyn.
It’s not immediately clear if his administration is considering limiting the hours or locations of deliveries in the city. De Blasio clarified that his Department of Transportation has “not come to a final plan, but you’ll be hearing more in the coming weeks.”
A Department of Transportation spokesman declined to elaborate on details of the plan before it’s release.
The mayor announced at his State of the City Address in February that he’d be putting forth strategy to reduce the city’s traffic. The plan won’t, however, include a congestion pricing proposal like Move NY, because de Blasio has said that he considers installing new tolls to be too difficult of a political fight.
Advocates have called for commercial delivery restrictions as a means to reduce gridlock while improving the safety of pedestrians and cyclists who weave in and out of the bike lanes occasionally blocked by truck drivers.
“The bottom line is cars are not supposed to block bike lanes,” de Blasio said. “And certainly not for long period of time except for particularly sensitive things like delivery trucks that might.”
De Blasio hasn’t elaborated on the timing of the plan beyond “within the coming weeks.”
“The Transportation commissioner, with a lot of our colleagues, is looking at the congestion issue — I’ve spoken about that several times that we’re looking forward in the coming weeks to present a new plan,” de Blasio said.
