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Your solution is effectively corporate welfare. The free market should determine whether customers will order packages or not. Also, you are suggesting that th
by partisan 7y ago
Your solution is effectively corporate welfare. The free market should determine whether customers will order packages or not.
Also, you are suggesting that the government should provide an easier means for businesses to serve their customers in a way that gives them an advantage over the local businesses that pay local taxes on purchases.
The real solution is to make delivery companies pay for the congestion they cause. A fair use tax, for example. Then, using that tax revenue, you can improve traffic. The delivery companies can pass their costs on to the retailers and the retailers can pass the costs on to the customers. The customers can then decide whether they wish to pay more or shop somewhere else.
- jacques_chester 7y ago> Your solution is effectively corporate welfare. The current state of affairs is corporate welfare too. With an added side helping of externalities imposed on other traffic. I think you're touching on the fact that all road surfaces in NYC are a massive net wealth transfer to those who drive on them or (especially) park on them. I agree. Either charge the full economic rate for use of the road, or turn it over to public transport, or some mix of these.
- MiroF 7y agoWe should be phasing out roads for non-delivery traffic in urban areas anyways.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- icebraining 7y agoSo no buses in urban areas?
- catalogia 7y agoBuses are just trucks that specialize in delivering people.
- SamReidHughes 7y agoIt's not really corporate welfare, because delivery companies are in competition and the cost savings get passed on to the consumer. It's a subsidy.
- ClumsyPilot 7y agoPeople keep repeating "savings get passed to the consumer" truism, but what is your evidence? DHL posts healthy profits, so I allege we are just padding their bottom line.
- SamReidHughes 7y agoIf that were false, DHL would raise prices and get even more profits.
- mieseratte 7y agoOr create the aforementioned delivery / pickup parking and charge a fee for their use. Gives citizens what they want, puts cost on the delivery services for their externalities, and doesn't engage in protectionism for local businesses.
- bradleyjg 7y ago> The free market should determine whether customers will order packages or not. Right. Use of the street should be auctioned rather than given away for free. My guess is delivery companies can and would outbid people that just want to store empty vehicles, which is what we are subsidizing now.
- evrydayhustling 7y ago100% this. The article is alarmist, but there are no simple solutions here. Why should NYC devote public space to guarantee access for a business model that primarily extracts wealth from the city? Maybe Amazon should lease parking spaces to stage its deliveries, at appropriate rates. It could even install equipment (e.g. mobile pallette depos) that made the delivery process more efficient.
- Rapzid 7y ago> extracts wealth from the city Not "provides value"?
- icebraining 7y agoAll the GP said is that there should be parking spaces for deliveries, not that they should be free.
- twblalock 7y ago> Your solution is effectively corporate welfare. The free market should determine whether customers will order packages or not. A government fair use or congestion tax on delivery vehicles, which you are proposing, isn't a free market solution.
- notatoad 7y ago>The real solution is to make delivery companies pay for the congestion they cause. A fair use tax, for example. Then, using that tax revenue, you can improve traffic. Congestion charges are only going to be effective if all road users have to pay it. If you want to charge delivery trucks but not personal vehicles, you're only going to make the congestion problem worse.