NYC Receives $5.6M Grant for Last-Mile Delivery

The U.S. Department of Transportation has given a $5.6 million grant to the New York City Department of Transportation from its Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program. RAISE is part of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, one of the largest infrastructure investments in U.S. history; to date it has awarded more than $1.8 billion in grants.

The RAISE money will fund the creation of an Urban Freight Mobility Collaborative (UFC). It is intended to serve as an innovation hub that will revolutionize urban freight movement while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It will be the first lab of this sort in the United States.

The UFC will work with the community, industry and universities to create public-private partnerships that will explore ways to decarbonize freight movement. Their goal is to secure a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions caused by freight movement by 2032.

A recent study demonstrated that delivery micro-hubs and cargo e-bikes could help save the city more than $240 million per year by simply eliminating delivery trucks idling while parked and blocking traffic.

The Urban Freight Lab will work to establish “microhubs” for delivery where a large delivery truck can offload its packages and then have those packages delivered to their final destination by smaller, nonobstructive forms of transportation including e-bikes—especially cargo e-bikes—handcarts and EVs. It will also work to develop marine infrastructure so that some trucks could be replaced by ships.