Commissioner Warren wants to get rid of your Prime deliveries
BY JENNIFER CABRERA / JULY 9, 2019
During late-night commissioner comment on June 20, 7.5 hours into the video of the meeting, Commissioner Helen Warren said that she wants to talk about limiting shipments of items purchased through online shopping:
Warren: “The increased number of trucks that are out there is related to the use of online shopping, and some of the conversations are also talking about trying to get your big online shoppers to coordinate packages instead of sending individual packages five times a week, to maybe have them do something where they send packages to the same household once a week or something. We’re talking about trying to reduce packages and land waste, the amount of boxes that are being created by that type of convenience. This is certainly something that we would want to have a discussion about because there are a lot of unintended consequences of what that’s putting on our economy and shipping on the highways.”
The item was referred to the General Policy Committee meeting for discussion. The next GPC meeting is on July 25, but the agenda for that meeting is not yet available.
Why should we focus on limiting the convenience of online shopping to due waste/fossil fuel concerns? The amount of boxes is not going to change and changing (limiting) the deliverys is not going to make people happy. So the only real concern here is fossil fuel of the trucks. Why don’t we address that? Here’s an idea! Why not install some more EV charging stations? Telsa SuperChargers or other! Encourage EV by offering GRU discounts. Let’s do what we can to help the “Here Comes the Sun” project.
An argument can easily be made that online purchases and deliveries reduce carbon emissions when one vehicle can deliver product to multiple households. What Helen Warren doesn’t see are haphazard fleet of private vehicles that avoid contributing to traffic congestion by shopping online. Will Helen suggest that USPS mail carriers stop delivering online purchases too?. These offensive and backward brain-farts at the dais do more to waste time,electricity and public funds than any 3 minutes of citizen comment. The correct procedure is to request city staff experts to provide a feasibility study on solving identified traffic problems. Commissioners make fools of themselves when they ignore city resources and pretend to be experts. How about we turn up the thermostat at City Hall to about 90 deg during the summer to shorten the commission meetings?,