Who’s delivering?

Amazon, UPS, FedEx and FreshDirect are among the main couriers.

In some neighborhoods, Amazon’s ubiquitous boxes are stacked and sorted on the sidewalk, sometimes on top of coverings spread out like picnic blankets.

What’s the impact?

New York City is collecting more money in fines. FedEx, FreshDirect, Peapod and UPS racked up just over 515,000 summonses for parking violations in 2018, totaling $27 million in fines, according to the city.

In 2013, those same companies received about 372,000 summonses and paid $21.8 million.

The city has more congestion. While the rise of ride-hailing services like Uber has unquestionably caused more traffic, the proliferation of trucks has worsened the problem.

The main entryway for packages into New York City, leading to the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey, has become the most congested interchange in the country.

Trucks heading toward the bridge travel 23 miles per hour, down from 30 m.p.h. five years ago.

You can expect to see more warehouses. Neighborhoods like Red Hook in Brooklyn are being used as logistics hubs to get packages to customers faster than ever. At least two million square feet of warehouse space is being built in New York City, including what will be the largest building of its kind in the country. Amazon added two warehouses here over the summer.

Officials are racing to keep track of the numerous warehouses sprouting up, to create more zones for trucks to unload and to encourage some deliveries to be made by boat as the city struggles to cope with a booming online economy.