Over the past few months I’ve had the distinct pleasure of digging deep in the world of sustainable delivery: I’ve kicked the tires on the new Honda Fastport, snuck in to Amazon’s NYC equad operations and studied how cities and third party delivery networks are working together to get couriers onto e-bikes.
That’s all well and good… but those are huge companies that have big bucks to spend on pilots (or worse yet, PR stunts masquerading as pilots.) What about the every day businesses that want to move their goods a bit more sustainably? And what of the hard scrabble logistics businesses that need green mobility to be not just “the right thing to do,” but actually work profitably?
That’s why I was pleased to sit down with Kevin Savage, the COO of Delivery Mates, for the final episode of this season of the Zag Talk podcast. Many others have tried, with a rather spotty track record, to make carbon-free deliveries work. Delivery Mates, with its fleet of electric vans, e-mopeds and equads, and some special sauce around its in-house software, may just have cracked the code on making it work.
Do give the episode a listen; Kevin shares plenty of insights from decades in the logistics biz. Plus, Sela and I go deep on London’s latest plan to tackle congestion, the newest sad SPAC saga (hint: it’s Luminar,) Starship’s partnership with Uber and much more.
CURBIVORE — 2-For-1 Tickets — Black Friday Special!
We’ve got a special Black Friday / Cyber Monday offer of our own! Register now for Curbivore — returning to DTLA on April 16 & 17 — and when you buy one ticket, you’ll get a second one free. Bring a friend, colleague or fellow curbside commerce leader. Act fast — this $97.50/person offer expires Monday!
Black asphalt, Black Friday: Tomorrow is Black Friday, America’s (and now, it seems, the world’s) great shopping festival. As you go out to spend, reflect on how so much of our built environment is festooned with parking, and even on the BUSIEST shopping day, much of it will lie empty. I went deep on the subject back in 2022, alongside photos and ULI / ITE parking minimum charts… (And shout out to the good folks at PRN working to solve these issues.)
Finally putting the “Bergen” into Hudson-Bergen Light Rail: 25 years after it first opened, New Jersey Transit is looking to fiiinally expand the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail (HBLR) into Bergen County, issuing an RFP to update the DEIS. The Northern Branch Project would extend the line by 10 miles, including seven new stations. Despite serving some of the densest communities in the country, the existing service’s riderships is pretty middling, likely due to its low speeds and lack of direct access to Manhattan.
Microhubs hit Manhattan: Speaking of the Big Apple, it’s delightful to see Amazon continue to improve its microhub + equad delivery operations in NYC. Powered by our friends at Perch, the new pods as a service build-out looks to speed package throughput while cutting down build times.
Emerald City e-cargo: Seattle also continues to up its urban logistics game, as the city has officially launched the Commercial E-Cargo Bike Program, further incentivizing the shift of deliveries to bikes and equads. It’s impressive how quickly the city is iterating on this, with the enabling legislation just signed a few weeks ago. Between Amazon, Urban Freight Lab and Fare Share / PayUp wage laws, Seattle is really a hot bed for urban logistics innovation. (Although to give credit where it’s due, Seattle also leaned on previous work done by policymakers in NYC + Boston.)
Abu Dhabi robotaxi, say it ten times fast! After a year of testing, Uber is starting commercial operations for its L4 autonomous robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The fleet consists of WeRide’s GXR five-passenger vans. WeRide is based out of Guangzhou, China; in an era of increased geopolitical tensions, the Gulf has emerged as a really interesting place where American and Chinese companies can play together. (I’m sure that’ll be a big topic at CoMotion Global in Riyadh.)
Like and subscribe: EV subscription platform Autonomy just raised $25M in new debt financing, as it moves from a Tesla-only model to including other electric brands like Polestar. It also looks like Autonomy is perhaps pivoting to be more of a platform that works alongside dealers like Galpin Motors, which might be in response to those pandemic-era price swings burning the company’s earlier balance sheet.
How does your state rank up? Here’s a fun new mapping project: take a look at the highest public transit commute rate by census tract in each state. At the top of the list: a housing project in East New York, Brooklyn, NY at 91.8%; a housing project (and some row houses) in North Philadelphia West, Philly, PA at 72.6%; East Boston, MA at 64%; Benning Ridge, Washington, DC at 63.5%; and Westlake, Los Angeles, CA at 60.7% (sorry, San Franciscans!) The state with the lowest highest census tract? South Dakota, natch!
Sorry, cities: Municipalities across the country are facing financial headwinds, with average spending levels only up 0.7% in Fiscal Year 2025, basically falling behind inflation; the forecast for 2026 is even bleaker. California governments have the added headache of the total self-own from AB 218 (Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher.) Instead of resolving the issues with a grand jury or special commission, we’ll just spend all our tax dollars on pay days for big law firms and subsequent fraud…
Checking in on Chicago: It’s possible we don’t spend enough time looking at the curbs and mobility moves in the Midwest. But it looks like Chicago is busy letting its Alderpersons rip out already-completed bike infrastructure. Cool!
I’m sure if you gave the truck drivers enough Red Bull they could do this too? Check out the precision of these autonomous trucks, letting a (human-operated) bike jump through them.
Don’t bank your urban redevelopment plans on mega-events… Atlanta is hoping to revitalize Underground Atlanta, a kinda-historic underground shopping district wrapping around its old downtown. The district has struggled for decades, last receiving a bit of love around the ‘96 Olympics. City officials are hoping the 2026 World Cup will breath new life and foot traffic into it, but somehow I don’t think eight soccer games are gonna turn this one around…
Tension rising: AV upstart Tensor has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent (big whoop) to bring its autonomous vehicles to GreenMobility, Norway’s leading carsharing platform. Recall that the original idea behind Tensor was that regular motorists will own them and rent them out when not in use, which is the exact opposite of this scheme. And while the Photoshopping on this announcement is so bad that you’d swear it’s 100% vaporware, Tensor did at least have some nice looking hardware on display at AutoMobility LA.
Can we build anything any more? On one hand, I’d like to celebrate that less than one year after the devastating Palisades Fire, the first new home in Pacific Palisades has received its certificate of occupancy. Not too shabby for permitting, inspections and construction; I’ve personally spent more time in permit hell for a simple renovation. But in a neighborhood known architectural icons like the Eames House (fortunately saved from the fire) and Bridges House (sadly lost,) this home looks like, and you’ve got to click to see the pictures to believe me, absolute dog shit. In any sane world this would be a $150K starter home in the exurbs, not prime coastal property. Maybe the idea was that by building it entirely out of plastic and vinyl, in the next fire it will just melt instead of burning down?
A few good links: Cool book alert — “If You Want to Win, You’ve Got to Fight: A Guide to Effective Transportation Advocacy.” If New Yorkers want to improve their transit service, they’ll need to come to terms with being not special. SEPTA looks to restore ailing commuter rail service with $220M in new capital funds. Cool holiday party alert — Data + Donuts Holiday Happy Hour, 12/2 in DTLA. Moving prose on the intersection of AI and real estate. The rise of AVs threatens China’s precarious gig workers. NYC continues to bring its curbside waste collection into the 20th century. Why bikeshare systems shouldn’t say no to tourists.
Don’t forget to score your 2-for-1 tickets to Curbivore; happy Thanksgiving!
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew
