Wednesday’s Headlines: Finger-Pointing Edition

The big story yesterday was the road death of delivery worker Salvador Navarette-Flores as he headed home to the Bronx on First Avenue after a long day.

Several outlets covered the death (amNY, Patch), but none had the depth of our story, which pointed out a central contributing factor in the death: Relentless law-breaking by exploited people who are given no other choice but to violate safety rules in order to make a living for themselves and their corporate overlords.

Navarette-Flores died because a delivery truck driver believed to be working for Fresh Direct needed to use the westernmost travel lane of First Avenue to unload merchandise and then use the bike lane as a staging area. And, according to the Department of Transportation, this is all legal — as long as the deliveries are deemed “expeditious.”

Problem is? They’re not.

Of course, truck drivers have an impossible job in this city — but mostly because the city provides them with far too few loading zones in residential neighborhoods because many community boards — hell, let’s call them what they are: car owner protection committees — object if the DOT repurposes even a few curbside spaces from free private car storage to truck staging areas.

The driver whose illegally parked truck led to Navarette-Flores’s death was not summonsed for using the travel lane as a loading zone. And neighborhood residents are angry because they know that Fresh Direct treats the corner of First Avenue and 76th Street as its own personal al fresco distribution center.

“I get these guys are doing their super-hard jobs and there is nowhere to park, but I can confirm that those trucks arrive at 76th and First each morning between 5:45 and 6 a.m.,” Streetsblog reader Jennifer Robinson wrote me yesterday. “The steel lift slams on the street , like an explosion, followed by the steel trollies being tossed on the concrete. Ear splitting. Then the bang bang BOOM SLAM BANG of the plastic crates. Trucks come in to reinforce the first one — sometimes two are there sometimes they switch off. Sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, 363 days a year. No break. No joke. … There is nothing ‘expeditious’ about the operation. It is a full-time distribution center. Period.”

What is to be done: Repurpose public space for the best public good: safe truck deliveries, speedy bus service, more sustainable modes of transportation. The storage of privately owned cars isn’t even on that list.

Meanwhile, the Workers Justice Project and Los Deliveristas Unidos will hold a vigil for Navarette-Flores at the crash scene on First Avenue near 76th Street at 5 p.m. on Wednesday (see below). To donate to a fund for his funeral, click here.

In other news:

We have a new police commissioner! And the first female commish ever! Meet Keechant Sewell, the current chief of detectives for the Nassau County Police Department! (NYDN, Post x 2, NY Times, Gothamist)