December 28, 2017--AMAZON

Streets here can be so crowded that there are times of the day when wobbly me is better off not venturing out. 

Forget the roadways. Traffic is at a perpetual crawl. I read in the New York Times a couple of days ago that the average speed for vehicular traffic is now 4.7 miles per hour, not much more than walking speed, down from 6.5 mph just five years ago.

Keep this up and we will soon descend into a perpetual state of gridlock.

What to do?

Some are calling for congestion pricing--charging cars and trucks for the use of the streets--we are charged for parking so why not for driving? 

They are doing this in London and other places and some claim things have gotten marginally better. Those calling for this in NYC say the city and state can use the money collected to fix the deteriorating subway system. If that system gets worse (and it will) think about the consequences for car and truck traffic.

Others of course are disagreeing. They think it would be bad for business just as tax increases cause businesses to leave town, move south, go offshore.

More objective analysts are attempting to understand what is happening, what is causing this accelerating crash of the city's infrastructure. For the subways that's easy--people who have responsibility for maintaining the system have ignored the deterioration, kicking the serious and cascading problem down the road. Or tunnel.

Others blame the exponential proliferation of Uber and other new for-hire car services.

Yellow cab licenses for decades have been limited to 13,600, whereas the new car services have grown to103,000 vehicles prowling the streets--often without passengers and this, some claim, is primarily responsible for the crisis. They note that things were better just four years ago when there were "only" 47,000 affiliated with Uber and other emerging ride-share companies.

There is one more thing not mentioned--Amazon. Amazon, the on-line e-commerce behemoth. 

I should be the last one to blame Amazon for anything. We have an array of financial investments, including in stock funds, but only one individual stock. Amazon. Some time ago I thought that Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO might turn out to be the world's best businessman. All time best and now richest man in the world. Other than Vladimir Putin. And so. I said, "Let's get some. Amazon stock." That obviously turned out well.

But self-interest aside, I think Amazon is a major contributor to the traffic mess.

Here's why--

Their package distribution system, which at the last link in the supply chain, requires delivery men to get your order from the truck to the lobby of your building.

And that's a lot of packages that require a lot of trucks in a place as densely populated as New York. Our building, for example, which has about 215 apartments is being buried in packages. We needed to renovate the lobby last year, minimally to quadruple the size of the package room. The doormen say our building is getting about 200 packages a day. Including, I need to confess--for us at least one delivery a day.

Books, clothing, shoes, groceries, beverages, paper goods, cosmetics, vitamins, small appliances.

To expedite this flow of deliveries, about a year ago, along many blocks of lower Broadway, Amazon cordoned off parking spaces with red traffic cones and semi-legally moved a fleet of trucks into those spaces. 

Along with the trucks--many apparently hired from companies such as Enterprise (look for Bezos to take them over)--comes a platoon of delivery men who fill another lane of traffic with their unloading and stacking of packages more than six feet high onto hand trucks which then get pushed along the sidewalks, contributing to foot traffic congestion.

It is true that we do get either same day or overnight delivery for our bath salts and probiotics, but at some expense to other aspects of our daily lives--for example, not being able to drive or walk. 

In the meantime, CEO Bezos, as of yesterday, is worth about $100 billion.