Hacker News Reader

Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

In a crowded urban neighborhood, there is not going to be anywhere for a delivery vehicle to legally stop. Unless the delivery company refuses to service the area, it’s going to do some double parking.

Downtowns address this problem with yellow commercial loading zones but those don’t really exist in residential neighborhoods.

View on HN

The companies could also hire a second person to actually run the deliveries inside while the driver makes sure not to block traffic.

It'll cost more than the current situation, sure, but it is an option.

This happens during busy times of year, like Christmas.

Ye. Service vehicles usually are exempted from the actual parking rules in practice. A sewage utility vehicle wont get ticketed if it has a pipe going down a adjacent drain and has the wheels on the sidewalk etc.

Walking from a free parking spot to the delivery location is not included in the price. Unless all delivery companies are forced to follow the parking laws (for real) at the same time they will just go out of business.

The problem is that the end user don't know what quality of delivery they will get, so they choose the cheapest, and there is a race to the bottom, like flight tickets.

When comparing prices the end user doesn't know that they might be beaten off the plane by security to make room for a business class late arrival end user, so the risk is not priced in correctly ...

Surely that sewage pump operator obtained a permit to block the street that day?

A permit doesn’t change the level of inconvenience for other road users.

Then, the delivery trucks shouldn't be parking there. Clear a spot and turn it into commercial parking only, i say. They're doing this right now on Polk street and it's so much safer for bicyclists on the portions that have this now.

A short detour on a sidewalk or grass/dirt shoulder doesn't seem that dangerous to me. Does it happen much that there's no room on the right and the cyclist has to go around the left of the truck?

There's a couple reasons that this dangerous enough that converting some street parking to commercial load/unload is a better solution:

1. There's no quick conversion in the middle of the street. It's a curb, which would require hopping, which is nearly impossible for an ebike and a dangerously unstable maneuver anyway.

2. There are cars blocking visibility with the sidewalk. If you hop onto it, you might strike a pedestrian you didn't see. Perhaps a short one, such as a child, who are unpredictable anyway.

3. Going to the right of the truck is a great way to get doored in the 0" of clearance between the truck and other parked cars. If it's the truck, enjoy your guaranteed head injury from the truck door 3 feet off the ground.

4. Biking on the sidewalk is illegal in many cities. So is parking in the bike lane, for that matter. Expecting one party to break the law because of a failure to enforce a separate law is unreasonable.

Would you do this to every block in the Sunset?

Yes. Why not? Add more busses and trams. Sunset houses have garages, many driveways, much of which is stuffed with junk and undriven cars. Perhaps they are supersaturated with cars?

The "no cars in the city" philosophy is not one without challenges or setbacks - getting rid of parking in sunset would suck, but it would motivate the creation of more and better public transit, which is a better solution than cars by nearly all marks.

The N is reliably overcrowded, and transportation funding measures are reliably passing. Is the problem really a lack of demand?

If you can't operate legally, that doesn't mean you get to break the law, that means you stop operating.

So start having internet retailers and takeout restaurants say “we don’t serve your street because it has a bike lane” and see how the long the bike lane lasts.

Yes, that is what should happen.

More likely than getting rid of the bike lane, the laws surrounding it will be amended to allow deliveries.

> there is not going to be anywhere for a delivery vehicle to legally stop

So they shouldn’t stop there then. Deliver the last mile on foot or using a cart. If it’s too large for that I guess you can get some kind of permit like they do for construction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com