Cargo Delivery by Boat and Bike will Reduce Traffic and Pollution
On Wednesday, December 17, the nonprofit organization Empire Clean Cities led a demonstration on the East River waterfront to show how maritime transport paired with electric cargo bikes can transform urban freight delivery. Reducing reliance on truck deliveries means decreased diesel pollution. The result: cleaner air.
In this trial, fresh seafood was hauled down the East River by boat from the Fulton Fish Market at Hunts Point (the Bronx) to Pier 16 (South Street Seaport). This leg of the journey was handled by the U.S. Coastal Service, a maritime shipper in the process of building a marine transport network across New York and New Jersey. The company’s 118-foot Caribbean Ferry, which can move up to 100 tons of cargo, is specially configured for micro-freight runs.
Once Caribbean Ferry had docked at Pier 16, the shipment was loaded onto e-cargo bikes (each of which has the carrying capacity of a van) provided by Net Zero Logistics, a firm specializing in “last mile” deliveries. Boxes were delivered by bike to the nearby Tin Building.
Currently, almost 90 percent of the City’s goods are moved into and around New York by truck, with more than two million packages delivered daily. The City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) notes that more than 80 percent of New York City residents receive at least one package at home each week. Before the Covid pandemic, deliveries were split between commercial and residential customers at a ratio of 60 to 40 percent, but that balance has shifted to roughly 80 percent of all deliveries going to directly to residential customers.
This intensifies traffic congestion, increases pollution, and harms the quality of life in residential communities. Taking such delivery trucks off the road by replacing them with boats and “last mile” conveyances such as commercial cargo bikes mitigates each of these detriments.
This is the vision of the Blue Highways initiative, a joint project of the DOT and the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) that aims to leverage the City’s hundreds of miles of navigable waterways for the sustainable movement of goods. Wednesday’s demonstration was part of a broader clean freight initiative led by Empire Clean Cities and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Captain Jonathan Boulware, president of the South Street Seaport Museum, watched as boxes were transferred from boat to bike. “This innovative pilot program demonstrates what we know: the ‘Blue Highway’ has been the most effective, efficient, and sustainable method of moving goods and people all along,” he said.
Empire Clean Cities executive director Joy Gardner said, “activating our waterways for freight is not just about reducing truck traffic. It’s about reimagining how goods move through our City and advancing clean transportation solutions to ensure clean air for future generations.”
The Blue Highways Action Plan, released by city planners in October, anticipates that regular freight service via the East River between the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center (one of the largest such hubs in the world) and Pier 11 will be launched by the fourth quarter of 2026. The operation will be transferred to the Downtown Skyport (as the helicopter landing facility on South Street is now known) by the end of 2027.
By then, the Downtown Skyport will have been rebuilt with maritime infrastructure that will allow cargo boats to transfer boxes to e-bikes for last-mile deliveries into Lower Manhattan.
In the longer term, EDC and DOT hope to expand the Blue Highways hubs in Lower Manhattan by adding direct connections to freight distribution centers in New Jersey.