Public Space Locked Up
Adams’ latest half-baked plan
ANOTHER week, another pilot program: Mayor Adams last week debuted LockerNYC to allow New Yorkers to pick up delivery packages at seven sidewalk sites. Just like an earlier pilot, though, for e-bike charging for food-delivery workers, this isn’t so much tech-driven innovation as it is public subsidy of private profit.
The mayor Wednesday channeled a “universal concern” of New Yorkers: “When our packages are dropped off” at our houses, “they are taken. You got to love New York, man,” he said, adding, “folks find” their packages “are stolen over and over again.”
You wouldn’t think the mayor would want to talk up the problem of mass larceny. Nearly a year ago, in teasing this locker program, the city even said 90,000 packages each day were stolen or permanently lost.
But police report only 440 grand and petit total larcenies each day. If, indeed, the true number is 200 times that figure, including in semi-secure apartment buildings with locked front doors, New York faces a crime crisis of epic proportions, one that won’t be solved through gimmickry.
Nevertheless, tech gimmickry is what we’re getting: Together with startup firm GoLocker, the city has installed seven LockerNYC locations on public sidewalks in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. Residents can sign up online for a shared locker, direct packages there and pick them up free within 24 hours.
And as City Hall was sure to tell reporters, the city isn’t paying for the pilot. Department of Transportation Director of Freight Mobility Diniece Mendes said, “There’s no cost, it’s the no-cost demonstration agreement with GoLocker.”
Sort of. Public sidewalks are public spaces, already cluttered with all sorts of nonsense: LinkNYC kiosks, parked delivery e-bikes, four different kinds of bigger and bigger garbage bins.
Now we’re turning over public space to private commerce — when private commerce is already addressing the problem.
Amazon, the nationwide package-delivery giant, offers free pick-up and drop-off locations in Whole Foods and other locations including lockers in places such as 7-Elevens. UPS and FedEx allow deliveries to their own retail locations, which aren’t hard to find.
To the extent private e-commerce businesses haven’t solved the problem, why should the city help, by providing free public space to for-profit industry?
Amazon competes with local retailers, who must rent their own storefronts and pay sky-high property taxes through their rents. As of February, New York was still missing 44,700 retail jobs, or 13%, relative to 2019; the nation as a whole has recovered all its lost retail jobs.
It’s the same problem with Adams’ pilot to offer e-bike delivery workers public sidewalk and street space to charge and swap out their e-bike batteries, which opened Feb. 29. Food delivery is a forprofit business, one controlled by huge global apps like Uber Eats.
The companies, not New York City taxpayers, should provide all the infrastructure and equipment their workers need to do their jobs.
And GoLocker will be getting above-and-beyond NYPD security. DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said that “we have been working in coordination with the local NYPD precincts to enhance safety at each location.” But why should these lockers get any more NYPD protection than any other site storing private property?
Plus: Although the mayor and his staff used the word “free” four separate times during Wednesday’s press conference, there’s another catch. If you sign up for the city’s program at 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 pick up your package, you can pay $5 per delivery or $20 per month.
Adams made no mention of these non-free options last week — but essentially, the city is providing free public space and free advertising, including a sign-up link, to a company that’s charging for that space.
This is an Adams pattern: announce “pilots” that are free or cheap to city government and aren’t big or important enough to really get much broad scrutiny.
He’s doing it here with GoLocker, his NYPD did it recently with a new Barnacle windshield boot to immobilize vehicles with unpaid tickets, and his DOT has highlighted three small private companies in the e-bike charging program.
It’s not just advertising; these companies get the ability to say to other customers and investors: We’re so good, New York City’s government uses us!
The City Council should be asking: What’s the process by which companies go about getting this free advertising and endorsement?