A City Council committee was slated to discuss two bills Friday that would ramp up monitoring of delivery traffic and e-commerce warehouses in New York City in an attempt to reduce pollution and improve air quality in the surrounding neighborhoods.
The bills, sponsored by Brooklyn Councilmember Alexa Aviles, would require the city’s Department of Environmental Protection to create regulations for areas frequented by large freight trucks. Those areas are often called “last-mile” zones, in reference to the final leg of e-commerce routes between distribution centers and delivery destinations. Environmental advocates and experts say they are disproportionately located in low-income communities of color — like Red Hook in Aviles’ district — and are associated with worse local air quality that can lead to higher rates of asthma, heart disease and other health issues.
One of the bills targets mega-warehouses like Amazon’s fulfillment centers and other "indirect-source" sites that attract heavy freight trucks. It would mandate the environmental department to issue rules and penalties aimed at reducing emissions from such sites.
The second bill would require the agency to designate “heavy-use thoroughfares” in every borough, install street-level air monitors along them and mitigate air pollution anywhere it surpasses existing thresholds. The city’s transportation and education departments would also be responsible for coming up with strategies to reduce exposure risks for people in those areas.
The first bill has seven cosponsors, while the second has 41. At least 26 votes are needed to pass legislation in the City Council. Rohit Aggarwala, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection commissioner and chief climate officer, was expected to testify at Friday’s hearing, which was scheduled for 10 a.m.
Aggarwala said in a statement that his agency supports the first bill because it aligns with the city’s efforts to “green” the freight industry and cut pollution in neighborhoods with a lot of warehouses. But he said the second bill would be redundant with existing air monitoring practices.
“What we need are real solutions like congestion pricing and the indirect source rule to reduce pollution,” he told Gothamist ahead of the hearing. "We look forward to working with the sponsor to revise this legislation with those priorities in mind."
Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle said the retail giant did not have any comment on the bills, but provided information about the company’s delivery methods in New York City, including deliveries via electric vehicles, bikes and pushcarts.
Aviles, the councilmember who introduced the bills, called both pieces of legislation an “important step forward for our city and our climate future.” She added that neighborhoods like those she represents in South Brooklyn have “suffered as the result of poor air quality, inflicted on us by the massive influx of large trucks on our roads.”
Data analyzed by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund shows 1 in 3 New Yorkers live within a half-mile of a large warehouse, which rumble with truck and van traffic as they work to fulfill the city’s huge number of online delivery orders. According to the City Council, more than 3 in 4 New Yorkers receive a delivery package at least once a week.
Red Hook, which includes several warehouses run by Amazon and other logistics companies, recorded as many as 1,200 heavy delivery trucks daily as of 2023, according to an investigation by the nonprofit Consumer Reports. Air pollution in the neighborhood routinely exceeded the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s threshold for unsafe conditions for vulnerable people.
