New York City’s next transportation revolution might be on the water

Marcus Hoed, a Dutch immigrant who founded the New York-based shipping company DutchX in 2013, was always intrigued by the possibilities of biking—specifically cargo bikes—to fill in the same-day shipping gap in urban logistics. For the last few years, the company has billed itself as a zero-emissions shipper: a fleet of electric-powered vans that traverse roadways and bridges while cargo bikes handle the last few miles of a package’s journey.  But starting last December, DutchX found a way to dramatically cut delivery times. Typically, shipping from its Brooklyn Marine Terminal sorting facility to Midtown West would take about 75 minutes, after navigating over a bridge or via a tunnel under the East River. But now, using a ferry, the firm can do the same trip in a third of the time. “We don’t need to drive a van into Manhattan, we don’t need to deal with parking challenges, and we don’t need to pay the fee for congestion pricing,” he says. Instead, goods are dropped off at Pier 7