Express delivery drivers drive de Pigge to despair: ‘The street is a distribution center’

An army of electric bikes on the sidewalk, trucks at the door three times a day and noise until late: De Pijp’s residents are tired of hooking up speed cameras in their neighborhood. Complaint letter now with the city council. “This is not a normal noise in the city anymore.”

It’s always crowded, but especially on Saturdays and Sundays it’s rush hour in De Pijp. Then people order their weekend breakfast in the morning, their lunch in the afternoon, and beer and wine in the evening before going out. That means a constant stream of electric bikes on their way to delivery and back again,” says local resident Jost Munning. “You see impending deaths happening next door.”

In addition to the industrial areas, express delivery services also have downtown hubs from which orders are delivered. This is also the case in De Pijp: Getir is located in Eerste Jacob van Campenstraat, delivery person Zapp is located in Daniël Stalpertstraat, and Gorillas is in charge at Gerard Douplein. The three moved into large buildings a stone’s throw from each other last year.

For De Pijp, that in any case means the promised fast delivery, Munning acknowledges. But express delivery also comes with part of the inconvenience. He himself had been noticing it for months: dozens of delivery bikes structurally in the middle of Gerard Doblin, trucks coming and going much more often than agreed, noise, sometimes all night long.

After several reports to the municipality, Munning made a small plea in the neighborhood to send a letter to the municipal council. “I thought this was no longer a normal city noise. Am I the only one who doesn’t like this?”

Munning received dozens of positive responses. “Everything really: from the people on their bikes, to the locals talking about (close) collisions between kids and delivery workers. People write that living on top of a branch is really a nightmare.” Hundreds of locals signed Munning’s letter. “While I just scattered it in a handful of streets.”

The arrival of the Gorillas express delivery driver is also a crime for local resident Tim. “Look, I know I live on Gerard Doblin, I’m really used to something. But that means noise from the baker at 4 in the morning, loading and unloading other supplies at 6 in the morning, and stopping the bikes at 7 in the morning. That way the street and the city turned into A big distribution center. If Albert Hein did that, it wouldn’t be okay either.”

dark stores

Delivery services are located in the so-called “dark shops”, which are buildings whose windows are plastered with duct tape. So it is impossible to enter – or search – as in ordinary stores: warehouses are only for storing and packing products for delivery. This also sparks outrage in the neighbourhood. Munning: “At first there were pretty shops here, which fit de Pijp as well. Now there are meaningless companies in such pretty places, without any appearance. But even without rules, apparently.”

In response to the letter, GroenLinks already asked written questions Friday afternoon about, among other things, building zoning plans for related buildings: “The residential and business buildings are actually used as a distribution center for (night) delivery and retail.” “The question is whether that’s allowed,” Munning says. The letter will be considered by the city council on December 1.