All Food Should be Exempt from Mayor's Delivery Restriction Test

SYRACUSE, NY (04/17/2018) (readMedia)-- This week, Mayor Bill de Blasio is implementing mandated delivery restrictions for areas in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn that will seriously disrupt food deliveries and other important goods and services. Any kind of delivery in designated areas will be restricted between 7 am and 10 am, and between 4 pm and 7 pm. Entire city blocks in these sections of the City will be denied food and medical supplies, among other important items, because of a prohibition against all delivery vehicles for six hours during the day. In some cases, the ability to get into and out of these areas for deliveries between the unrestricted hours will be so burdensome that delivery companies may not be able to continue to serve their customers in these areas. The Mayor's intention of easing congestion is understandable although New York City has experienced traffic congestion for decades. The Mayor is calling this exercise a test, we call it government overreach, immoral, and a major mistake with potentially dangerous consequences for the future of self-sufficient urban areas. It will not take a 6 month test to understand the ramifications; distribution companies already know the answers. The distribution of food to markets should never be interrupted or delayed for any reason, unless in times of extreme emergency. Urban city residents count on the continuous flow of food being produced from rural areas, sent to processing and manufacturing plants, then distributed to retail and food service locations where they shop. Citizens should not allow the City government to keep food from being distributed freely where they live and work. Schools, hospitals, nursing homes, not to mention restaurants, supermarkets, bodegas, bakeries, delis and food stores need deliveries to arrive at a reasonable hour to be made ready for shoppers during the day. If shoppers start leaving these restricted area businesses, which may be out of stock, this could drive many local merchants out of business, thus risking the creation of urban food deserts. If City residents are not able to shop for fresh wholesome food items when they need to and where they live and work, they'll be forced to travel further, potentially increasing congestion. Distributors identified compromises prior to the test starting but were not pursued by the City. City residents should not allow the delivery of food to be stopped for one minute, much less for a full 6 hours of every day. Restricting free access to deliver food products causes many logistical, safety and costly problems for milk and dairy processors, distributors, their employees, and importantly our customers who receive our food. The Mayor, the City Council, or the Department of Transportation has not provided sufficient documentation to determine the exact causes of increased city traffic congestion. Although through simple observation one could conclude increased use of cars for personal hire, increased bicycle lanes, and simple increased population could be the reason. The cause is not an increase of vehicles which distribute milk or other perishable nutritious food to markets. Foods like fresh milk are essentials, not to mention medical supplies, heating oil and gasoline. There is no evidence the Mayor's mandated delivery restrictions will ease traffic congestion, but what is clear is that the Mayor's restrictions will cause great burdens for all delivery businesses and their customers in the restricted zones, problems which could lead to urban food deserts. We urge City residents to join the Northeast Dairy Foods Association, Inc. and many other groups who testified last week in front of Ydanis Rodriguez, City Council Transportation Chair, in asking the Mayor and the full City Council to immediately exempt all food from the test restrictions. Then re-consider the delivery restriction test and come back to the table now with those affected so real compromises to ease traffic congestion could be examined and explored without generating extreme distribution problems.

Posted Tuesday April 17, 2018 at 03:58 pm by Northeast Dairy Foods Association, Inc.