DC leaders working on plans to relieve traffic congestion across the city

DC piloting programs to relieve traffic congestion from delivery drivers

With more and more delivery vehicles on the roads. D.C. is trying to figure out ways to ease some of the congestion at curbs.

WASHINGTON - With more and more delivery vehicles on the roads. D.C. is trying to figure out ways to ease some of the congestion at curbs.

There are several pilot programs in play right now to deal with all the delivery drivers and vehicles—mopeds, Amazon, UPS and FedEx trucks.

There is also new legislation proposed by Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen that would charge drivers for parking using cameras mounted on poles by reading their license plates.

What they're saying:

"I don't need to bill someone lots of money to pull over for parking. If you only need five minutes, let's make it cheap—25 cents, very little amounts—but just manage that better and that's what the cameras and technology can help us do," Allen said. "My goal is, I want to keep that travel lane clear."

Allen said that model been piloted in cities like Pittsburgh and Boston and has been fairly successful.

FOX 5 spoke with D.C. Department of Transportation Director Sharon Kershbaum to break down some of the other pilot programs they are hoping can help.

First, they are turning some high-traffic dense corridors into super-short-term parking—think ten minutes or half an hour at most.

"So if the commercial corridor has things like hair salons or vet clinic, we know those areas still need an hour or two hours of parking, but when you have a strip that has a lot of fast-casual restaurants, those are the ones that work best for the 10-minute parking," Kershbaum said.

That way, food delivery drivers can park and pick up quicker without taking up too much curb space.

Next, they are trying to replace big 18-wheeler delivery vehicles on congested roads by hubbing them and having smaller vehicles or even pedal or E-bikes pick up packages and do the drop-offs.

And finally, on Tuesday, DDOT issued permits for those Kiwibots—the little food delivery robots you've probably seen or heard of—to operate on the campuses of both Howard University and George Washington University.

"Curbside is always a challenge for us," Kershbaum said. "There's not enough supply to meet demand so we have to be really innovative to use what we can."

Local perspective:

Jonah Bliss with Curbivore, which he calls a community gathering around the future of transportation and delivery, said the District seems to be moving in the right direction with the changes.

"Because we leave our curbs unpriced, so to speak, especially in D.C., there's a perverse incentive to grab every inch of curb you can, park your truck illegally in the no loading zone," Bliss said.

DDOT is also offering nearly 70 free E-bikes to delivery drivers who want to trade in their mopeds, many of which are illegal and unlicensed in the District.

Again, these are all pilot programs in specific areas, so they will test them out and see exactly what works to implement city-wide.