Parts of the city will soon have metered parking in select areas for trucks and other commercial vehicles as part of a new pilot program, transportation officials announced on Thursday.
The NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) launched the Overnight Truck Parking Pilot, which features metered parking in select industrial business zones for commercial vehicles, including large tractor-trailers. The one-year pilot will provide about 45 new legal spaces in Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens.
The program’s goal is to support truck drivers in complying with federally mandated rest periods and reduce illegal overnight parking in residential areas.
“Truck deliveries are important for NYC’s economy, with nearly 90% of goods in NYC moving by truck,” DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said at a press conference in Maspeth. “While we are doing more to accommodate the movement of freight through different means, we need safe places for truckers to park so that drivers don’t park illegally in residential neighborhoods.”
The trucks can use the metered parking to park in 8-hour increments in three locations as part of the program: Maspeth, Queens; Hunt’s Point, Bronx; and Flatlands, Brooklyn.
“Too many working-class and middle-class communities bear the burden of illegal and dangerous residential parking by tractor-trailers and other large trucks,” DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said.
However, the commissioner noted that the trucks are plentiful because there is a strong demand for deliveries by New Yorkers.
“But all New Yorkers should know that the reason there are so many trucks in our streets is because there is a heavy demand by our consumers,” he added.
More than 84% of New Yorkers place an order through Amazon, UPS or FedEx once a week, and 24% of New Yorkers place an order four times a week, Rodriguez said.
Zach Miller, president of government affairs at the Trucking Association of New York, said there are 11 trucks on the road for every parking space nationally. The situation is worse in dense urban areas like NYC, he added.
“The consequences of this shortage force truck drivers to either violate federal hours-of-service regulations that mandate rest breaks or park in unsafe or unauthorized locations,” Miller said.
He added that parking in unauthorized areas is not only dangerous but also “unfair to both the driver and the residents and communities” that are impacted.
“This pilot program represents a meaningful step in the right direction—ensuring that drivers have access to parking during their rest hours so that freight can continue to move safely and efficiently throughout the five boroughs, while providing relief to neighborhoods that are impacted by overnight truck parking,” he said.
Drivers can use the ParkNYC mobile app to pay $10 for each session. It is available all day, Monday through Saturday. The city does not charge for parking on Sundays.
The pilot is the latest initiative from DOT to address challenges presented by increased ordering of goods online. Other efforts have included loading zones to reduce double parking and blocked bike/bus lanes and microhubs that provide dedicated spaces for truck operators to transfer deliveries onto safer and more sustainable modes of transportation for the last leg of delivery.
