Demands of e-commerce won’t be met by paper band aids
Today’s blog post is the fourth in a series where we look at Seattle’s land use history and decades of missed opportunities for comprehensive infrastructure planning for transportation and housing.
In January 2020 the World Economic Forum (WEF) predicted demand for e-commerce deliveries would cause a 36% increase in city center delivery vehicles over the next 10 years. They will produce 6 million new tons of CO2 emissions and a 21% increase in commute times.
That was before COVID-19 made e-commerce the world’s lifeline to groceries, meals and household supplies. WEF concludes changing the last mile ecosystem is the only way cities will support e-commerce and tame congestion and pollution.
Yet, as last stops in the delivery ecosystem, Seattle’s new crop of mixed-use residential/commercial towers are designed to fail. Most plans reveal infrastructure that can’t contain current loading and waste demands without spilling onto alleys and streets.
The Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI) would seem to concur. In 2019 it studied the problem and prepared ALBSW (Alleys Loading Berths Solid Waste) code amendments and a Director’s Rule to require minimum infrastructure requirements. Set to roll out by the end of 2019, those initiatives were put on hold without explanation.
Instead, in the face of poor functional design, SDCI has turned to Loading Dock Management Plans (LDMP). These boiler plate documents are paper promises that tower management will inform all commercial and residential tenants of loading dock operations and restrictions on delivery and moving schedules. Some plans call for a point person but most rely on posting signs and the honor system for compliance. There’s no mechanism to enforce these IOU pledges or consider neighbors’ competing alley use.
The first downtown LDMP appeared in 2016 and was challenged before the Seattle Hearing Examiner who ruled the plan “lacks specificity to adequately minimize potential impacts of the proposal and should be revised.” That project is still under challenge and to-date not a single downtown tower has activated an LDMP.
However, many towers have made the same empty promises.
DRA reviewed seven towers (#3019699, #3018037, #3026266, #3026416, #3018686, #3033067, #3007605) built or proposed in the past three years within 1 ½ blocks of First Light the tower profiled here last week. Each share Virginia St. access and all but one (#3007605) propose or were granted a reduction in the number or length of their berths or were approved with berths that block access to waste collection, requiring garbage to be staged in the alley.
Collectively they represent 2,421 new homes with 1,869 new parking stalls, 613 hotel rooms and over 300,000 sf of commercial space all with people expecting front door delivery but lacking enough loading space within their building or on surrounding streets already prioritized for transit and bikes.
Two of the seven towers don’t have LDMPs and those with them say problems will be solved by posting ‘no stopping or standing’ signs, only accepting trucks short enough to fit their berths and spreading residential and commercial delivery schedules out “as evenly as possible.”
Our reliance on e-commerce is growing and each faulty tower approved on a promise guarantees more congestion and CO2. Seattle leaders should insist on working infrastructure. Justifying new towers based on LDMPs is prescribing a paper band aid for a self-inflicted wound.
Stay tuned for future posts in this series, exploring how current Seattle development and land use policy is impacting Seattle transportation and sustainable housing.
Be sure to read additional posts in series:
Will Seattle’s 19th century transportation grid continue to survive business as usual?
Another rubber-stamped tower is designed to fail
Surface parking lots: A hot button issue
