Driving down a street, you come upon a delivery truck parked in your lane, and it’s impossible to pass. Frustration can’t even begin to describe how you feel, especially when you are already late. Double parking seems to be how a city functions due to condensed urban populations, the proliferation of small businesses, a tremendous uptick in consumer delivery, and a lack of loading areas. Double parking is an annoyance to all street users and with the ongoing war on parking and drivers, it only worsens.
We are all consumers, and the pandemic significantly increased the number of consumer goods delivered daily to our homes. A great example is from the most congested city in the US.
A November 2021 report estimated that more than two million e-commerce parcels were delivered per day in New York City. This daily load requires some 7,800 delivery vehicles each on the streets for eight hours, which equals a total of more than 60,000 vehicle hours per day. At least 45 percent of New Yorkers receive a home delivery every week. These figures do not include all the delivery needed for stores and businesses.
Pymnts.com reported in July that the average US consumer now carries out at least two online daily transactions. This study suggested that 17 percent of US consumers daily buy retail products online, and another 17 percent purchase restaurant takeout or groceries (for delivery or pickup).
No wonder double parking has taken over in cities large and small. Delivery drivers have a tight schedule, and we expect our packages when we want them. If there is no parking, double parking or parking in bike or bus lanes are the only solutions for many drivers.
Arthur Miller, a lawyer representing NYC truckers, said in an interview, “The issue with double parking is a symptom of the failure of urban planners to allow for deliveries and other quick visits.”
Drivers of all stripes find streets challenging to drive due to the shrinking of pure vehicle lanes and an increase in bike and bus lanes, traffic calming, outdoor dining venues, vehicle street bans, and dock spaces for scooters, delivery, and e-bikes. The same goes for parking. Real estate developers and urban planners push parking minimums so that lower-income housing does not cost as much per unit.
NYC has also set up a bounty system for truck idling, another symptom of double parking. If a person finds a vehicle that is idling, they can take a photo of it and send it to the city for 25 percent of the ticket. Miller deals with many issues concerning the bounty system.
Here is an example of just one scenario he deals with in his practice. Suppose three people take a photo of the idling vehicle during the same period in the same place, and the truck also receives a ticket from the parking department. In that case, it now gets three tickets from one city department and a fourth ticket from another. New York City has no centralized data clearinghouse to eliminate duplicates. If the delivery truck was leased by an independent contractor or a different company, it’s also a problem. If the ticket(s) defaults because it didn’t go to the right company, the initial default fine is $1000.
Sometimes, the city cites the wrong company due to information advertised on the truck. For example, Joe’s Painting Company has the name all over the truck, but there is an ad on the truck for the type of paint Joe uses. The city could send the ticket to the paint company, not to Joe. Timeliness is not a function of this kind of ticketing (similar to automated traffic enforcement).
Miller says sometimes it can take years before a ticket even shows up. When it finally does show up in the mail, the driver might not work for the company any longer, the paperwork for the day the truck was fined might not be available, or the company could even be out of business. Miller states that these complications keep his practice quite busy.
As cities eliminate street parking and build bike lanes, the issue worsens when a vehicle parks fully in a bike lane or halfway in the bike lane and the street. Bad for motorists and bicyclists.
New York City and San Francisco are now considering a similar bounty system (as the NYC truck idling program) for vehicles parked in bike lanes.
One of the problems in a city like San Francisco, though, is that for the past seven years, city data indicates that traffic violations have declined by a whopping 92 percent. This statistic coincides with an overall decline in police officers.
Curb management has also become the new buzzword for urban planners. Several companies have been working with cities to monetize the curb beyond parking. This month, Philadelphia announced that it would work with Google’s Sidewalk Labs to pilot a smart loading zone program. Pittsburgh announced a similar pilot with the company Automotus earlier this year.
Most curb management companies build a booking system for delivery companies to use when they want to deliver goods on a particular street. We’re not sure, though, how such an on-time scheduling system could work well with all the traffic issues on any given day.
In urban cores, micromobility ideas such as bikes with trailers might come into play, but it will take time, and there are inherent problems. Should a large delivery bike be ridden in the street, the bike lane, or the sidewalk? Where does one park when delivering those biked-in goods?
Of course, automated enforcement of bike and bus lanes is also an option (which the NMA does not favor).
Double parking is the byproduct of poor urban planning and occurs because there are no other viable options. Trying to fix the problem is as complicated as any traffic issue. In the meantime, drivers will deliver packages and will double park in some instances. Unfortunately, motorists and other road users will need to endure the inconvenience if we all still want our packages when we want them.
