Another week, another pilot program: Mayor Adams launched LockerNYC last week to allow New Yorkers to pick up their delivery packages on seven sidewalks.
However, much like a previous pilot project involving e-bike charging for food delivery workers, this is not so much a technological innovation as a public subsidy of private profit.
The mayor channeled a “universal concern” of New Yorkers on Wednesday: “When our packages are left” at our home, “they are taken. You gotta love New York, man,” he said, adding that “people are finding out” that their packages “are being stolen over and over again.”
You wouldn’t think the mayor would want to talk up the problem of mass theft.
Nearly a year ago, in teasing this deposit program, the city even said that 90,000 packages each day were stolen or permanently lost.
But police only report 440 grand and petty thefts in total each day.
If, indeed, the real number is 200 times higher, including in semi-secure apartment buildings with locked front doors, New York faces a crime crisis of epic proportions, a crisis that will not be solved by gadgets.
Still, we get a tech gadget: Working with startup GoLocker, the city has installed seven LockerNYC locations on public sidewalks in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn.
Residents can register online to benefit from a shared locker, direct their packages there and collect them for free within 24 hours.
And as city hall was quick to tell reporters, the city is not paying for the pilot project.
Diniece Mendes, director of freight mobility at the Department of Transportation, said: “There is no cost, it’s the no-cost demo agreement with GoLocker. »
Kind of. Public sidewalks are public spaces, already cluttered with all kinds of nonsense: LinkNYC kiosks, parked electric delivery bikes, four different types of increasingly larger trash cans.
We are now handing over public space to private commerce – while private commerce is already tackling the problem.
Amazon, the national package delivery giant, offers free pickup and drop-off locations at Whole Foods and other locations, including lockers at places such as 7-Elevens.
UPS and FedEx allow deliveries to their own locations, which are not difficult to find.
Since private e-commerce companies haven’t solved the problem, why should the city help, by providing free public space to the for-profit industry?
Amazon competes with local retailers, who must rent their own storefronts and pay exorbitant property taxes on their rents.
As of February, New York was still short 44,700 retail jobs, up 13% from 2019; the nation as a whole has regained all the lost retail jobs.
It’s the same problem with Adams’ pilot project to provide e-bike delivery riders with public sidewalks and public spaces to charge and swap batteries on their e-bikes, which opened on February 29.
Food delivery is a for-profit business, controlled by huge global apps like Uber Eats.
Businesses, not New York City taxpayers, should provide all the infrastructure and equipment their workers need to do their jobs.
And GoLocker will offer better security than the NYPD.
DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said that “we have been working in coordination with the local NYPD station to improve safety at each location.”
But why should these lockers receive more protection from the NYPD than any other site storing private property?
More: Although the mayor and his team used the word “free” four times during Wednesday’s press conference, there is another catch.
If you sign up for the city’s program on the GoLocker website, yes, GoLocker offers a free service.
But it also offers you a choice of two premium services: If you want 72 hours instead of 24 hours to collect your package, you can pay $5 per delivery or $20 per month.
Adams made no mention of these paid options last week – but essentially, the city is providing free public space and free advertising, including a registration link, to a business that is loading for this space.
This is an Adams pattern: announcing “pilots” that are free or low cost to city government and are not important enough to receive serious scrutiny.
He’s doing it here with GoLocker, his NYPD did it recently with a new Barnacle windshield to pull over vehicles with unpaid tickets, and his DOT highlighted three small private companies in the e-bike charging program.
It’s not just about advertising; these companies have the opportunity to tell other customers and investors: We are so good, the New York City government is using us!
The City Council should ask itself: What is the process that businesses go through to get this free publicity and approval?
Nicole Gelinas is editor-in-chief of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.
New York Post
