DELIVERING IRE
Manhattan nabes rage: Gopuff cars clog streets
Marco Botarelli, who lives across Lexington Avenue from this Gopuff store between 89th and 90th streets, says of its drivers: “They are loitering in their cars with their music playing. And there are never any spots for us if we need to park in front of our building.”
New Yorkers’ love-hate relationship with grocery delivery apps is becoming more heated as one of the biggest has begun using cars in addition to bicycles and scooters, The Post has learned.
Deep-pocketed startup Gopuff is on a hiring binge for delivery workers who drive cars, even as surging congestion in the city slows traffic to a crawl, and residents complain that idling and double-parked delivery cars are “ruining” their “quality of life.”
On the Upper East Side, Gopuff drivers regularly sit in their cars across the street from a Gopuff location on Lexington Avenue between East 89th and East 90th streets for up to 30 minutes at a time, neighbors say.
The same unmarked cars repeatedly park in front of a residential building and stores while the drivers wait for packages to deliver. But the space is zoned for commercial vehicles to make stops and deliveries, neighbors complain. Cars picking up Gopuff goods don’t have the required commercial license plates, they gripe.
Blocking parked autos
Gopuff told The Post that it does use cars for deliveries in the outer boroughs, but said that “delivering orders by car in Manhattan is a violation of our stated expectations.”
Marco Botarelli, who lives across from the store at 1349 Lexington Ave., disputes Gopuff ’s claim.
“They are loitering in their cars with their music playing,” Botarelli told The Post. “And there are never any spots for us if we need to park in front of our building.”
Local business owners are also fed up with the situation.
“The plumbers, the food vendors and other trades workers who have proper plates can’t park in front of the businesses that they are servicing because of these cars,” said John Miklatek, who owns health-food store Food Liberation on the block.
In February, Carnegie Hill City Councilmember Julie Menin sent a letter to its co-founders and CEOs, Rafael Ilishayev and Yakir Gola, to complain about “Gopuff delivery vehicles remaining double parked for lengthy periods of time, trapping residents’ cars until delivery drivers finally come to move their vehicles.”
“It’s important to Gopuff that we are good neighbors,” Gopuff said. “This includes listening to and working with our neighbors to address any concerns they may have.”
Menin has submitted a legislative request to regulate the industry via the Department of Consumer Affairs, which would issue licenses to these businesses.
“You can’t have unlicensed cars that take over a block and neighborhoods without any regulation,” Menin told The Post.
The news comes after months of complaints from neighbors and local politicos about delivery workers on electric bikes and scooters flouting traffic laws, as reported by The Post.
Aggravating congestion
Gopuff’s use of cars has been so under the radar that even one of the industry’s biggest critics, City Councilmember Gale Brewer, was unaware of it.
“If Gopuff is using cars for deliveries, they are exacerbating congestion and pollution,” Brewer told The Post, accusing Gopuff and other startups of “coming into town upending local laws and extracting what they can from our neighborhoods.”
Over the past week, Gopuff has posted listings across online job boards for delivery drivers for Manhattan’s Lower East Side, NoHo, Upper West Side and Seaport, as well as in Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens.
Gopuff insisted to The Post that it’s not actually hiring drivers in Manhattan and that the ads were meant to attract bike couriers.
Fellow grocery delivery apps Gorillas, Getir and Jokr all confirmed to The Post that they never use cars for deliveries in New York.
Sarah Kaufman, a transit expert and professor at New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation, said she was baffled by the decision to use cars for deliveries in traffic-clogged Manhattan.
“I’m frankly surprised that they find it more efficient to use a car, especially in Manhattan, than to use other modes of transport because I imagine they’re spending much of that time sitting in traffic,” Kaufman told The Post.
But Brittain Ladd, a retail consultant who has worked with rapid delivery companies including Gopuff, said that switching to car deliveries could make sense to help the company cut costs amid pressure from investors.
While distributing several orders with one driver will likely raise delivery times, Ladd said it lowers labor costs. A single driver can handle several deliveries at the same time, while bike couriers are more limited in what they can carry, according to Ladd.