The final 50 feet of the urban delivery system begins at the city-owned curb, commercial vehicle load zone, or sidewalk. It may extend through privately owned building freight bays, can include alleys, and may end in the common areas within a building such as the lobby. The last 50 feet provide challenges to goods delivery because there is a high—and growing—demand for scarce road, curb, and sidewalk space in urban areas with multiple competing uses. Without proven new tools, Seattle and other rapidly growing cities lack a data-driven way to balance limiting and/or reducing parking and loading in street space that is needed by transit, cars, bikes, and trucks. This project will provide quantitative data to help the City of Seattle understand more about urban goods delivery trends, logistics, and related technologies and thereby optimize the final 50 feet of deliveries of business and consumer goods to large residential, office, historic, and retail buildings in the downtown Seattle area. It will provide decision support to the City in revising codes and regulations pertaining to parking and truck loading/unloading zones and in making near- and long-term planning decisions regarding the management of scarce and expensive space in final 50 feet locations.
Principal Investigators:
Anne V. Goodchild, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Edward D. McCormack, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Sponsor: Seattle Department of Transportation
Scheduled completion: December 2021