NYC's "blue highways" program aims to reduce trucks on streets

New York City’s plan to move thousands of freight deliveries out of trucks and onto the waterways took a small but important step forward when a boat docked in the Bronx to pick up 800 pounds of produce.

The 55-year old boat that used to ferry people and cars across the Long Island Sound is the start of what city planners hope is a shipping revolution.

“The idea is that hopefully once this is developed, it'll connect with this blue highway site here, where more containerized international produce that comes in gets transported through New York Harbor up to Hunts Point,” said Ilana Mayid-Dennis, president of U.S. Coastal Service, the company operating the freight boat. “Then it can get transloaded, where it's then distributed throughout the city using the waterways.”

For the last two years, the city Economic Development Corporation has worked on a“blue highways” program, which aims to reduce air pollution and street congestion by replacing thousands of trucks with maritime shipping. The agency now seeks proposals for a barge service between Red Hook in Brooklyn and the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx. Officials want it to run at least once a day with the capacity for at least 100 containers per trip. The service could begin by 2030.

But for now, Mayid-Dennis’s company is proving the concept by shipping produce between Hunts Point and Manhattan.

Mayid-Dennis watched from the boat’s bridge with Malcolm Martin, the company’s director of vessel operations, as the crew maneuvered a lone pallet of squash, bananas, bell peppers, cucumbers and eggplants into a 20-foot refrigerated container on the deck Wednesday.

Mayid-Dennis is hoping the single shipping container could one day be joined by hundreds more making their way through the city’s waterways.

The 55-year-old boat runs on its original diesel engines. Its radar is old. But for Mayid-Dennis, the vessel represents a potential transformation of the city’s food infrastructure and waterfront.

Mayid-Dennis pointed to an empty space where the city’s infamous prison barge sat for decades before it was towed away last year. The city plans to turn that space into a massive marine freight terminal. Mayid-Dennis sees a future where the city's waterfronts are dotted with shipping hubs, and dozens of electric cargo vessels ply the waters.

The ship cruised down the East River, dodging small fishing boats as Martin jostled the ship to the dock for its 35-minute window at the East 34th Street docks. The pallet was transferred onto electric cargo bikes, which completed the delivery.

“ The concept of marine freight is not new,” Mayid-Dennis said. “That's how New York City flourished. It's a matter of reclaiming the waterfront.”

Mayid-Dennis said getting diesel-burning trucks off the road will help reduce the harm to people who live in the South Bronx.

“These communities have the highest instances of asthma, air pollution, and road wear and tear,” she said. “The idea is to abbreviate the time that trucks and vehicles spend on the roads.”