For the last few years, the Town of Vail has been working to remove all vehicles from its pedestrian villages as a means to restore the town founders’ original vision of Vail Village as a car-free zone.
While it’s successfully removed most delivery vehicles and trucks — boasting the removal of 47 trucks and 147 visits into the villages on an average day in the program’s first winter — it is still working out how to get high-volume commercial carriers, such as FedEx, UPS and DHL, as well as trash trucks out of Lionshead and Vail Village.
The town initially planned to start a four-month pilot removing the high-volume commercial carriers in September. At its Tuesday, Oct. 3 meeting, the town council unanimously approved code changes to allow for eventual enforcement of this.
However, the pilot has been pushed back and has no current start date as the town continues to negotiate and work out operations with FedEx and UPS.
Vail Police Chief Ryan Kenney said the town is currently “trying to work with the high-volume commercial carriers to come up with a system that we’re comfortable with and they’re comfortable with.”
As such, no enforcement effort has started either, Kenney confirmed.
When the town set the original pilot dates and plan, it was based on conversations with local representatives from the companies. However, Kenney at the Sept. 5 Council meeting said that the plan reached “completely broke down when corporate got involved.”
“With each of these companies, they have their own internal policies that kind of guide their delivery service. So we want to make sure that we’re respecting those internal policies,” Kenney said, referring to UPS and FedEx, in an interview on Friday, Oct. 6 with the Vail Daily.
Kenney added that the town does not have an expected timeline for when the pilot will start.
“Obviously, I’d like to have something in place before the ski season starts, but there’s a lot of moving parts that we just want to make sure that the vendors are comfortable with the way the system is working,” he said.
With this, Town Manager Russ Forrest told council on Tuesday that the town is “still allowing FedEx and UPS to make deliveries” in both villages.
Want the news to come to you? Get the top stories in your inbox every morning. Sign up here: VailDaily.com/newsletter
“As of today, we’re letting in FedEx, we’re letting in UPS. The only issue would be FedEx Freight, where they have communicated to people — even though we’ve shared with them we’ll figure out where that truck can go and what it can do — but I think FedEx Freight to apply pressure, really on us, have communicated that,” Forrest said.
Vail contracted with 106West Logistics to operate the courier program from the town’s loading docks and the company’s warehouse in EagleVail. Rather than delivering directly within the villages, the delivery trucks deliver goods either to EagleVail or to one of five loading docks in Vail. From there, items are then delivered through the village by small electric vehicles. Delivery companies are required to pay an annual dock fee to receive a permit to enter any of these docks.
Part of the pushback from the high-volume commercial carriers is that they still want to deliver themselves.
“The biggest thing that’s a misnomer is that when you deliver to Vail, you’re forced to use the town’s contractor, which isn’t the case. So I think a lot of these companies are trying to decide, do we want to use the town’s contractor or do we want to just continue delivering on our own?” Kenney said, adding that each company has to make this decision for itself.
When the Town Council approved the code changes on Tuesday, it also voted to add language to the code, which would allow the use of “electric push carts” or “e-walkers,” which was something suggested by UPS. If this is the direction the carrier decides to go, it would park at the town’s dock and deliver through the villages itself with the electric carts. With this allowance, Forrest indicated the town was close to an agreement with UPS.
Kenney said this would be “no problem at all.”
“A dolly of any form is already perfectly acceptable. What we’re trying to avoid is anything that would damage the pavers or the snowmelt system down there,” he added.
While the town is still working out the details for operation with FedEx and UPS, DHL and the USPS are already utilizing the town’s loading and delivery program. Forrest told the council on Tuesday that both are “quite happy with it.”
However, as the town continues to work out the kinks in the program with the companies, local businesses are expressing confusion and concerns about the implementation. Tuesday’s packet included several emails from business owners citing things like “FedEx and UPS have been unable to deliver my merchandise and hard goods efficiently because of your new policies,” as put by Tom Higgins, the owner of the American Ski Exchange.
Similarly, Troy Goldberg, the owner of Troy’s Ski Shop said FedEx Freight told him they could not deliver to the shop. Hilary Magner, the owner of Squash Blossom Vail, said it received a similar notification from FedEx.
Additionally, at Tuesday’s meeting, Alison Wadey, the Vail Chamber and Business Association executive director, addressed similar challenges.
“We do need to be very clear and we need to actually communicate to the business community,” Wadey said. “They’re getting a lot of misinformation.”
She added that there was confusion about package pickups specifically as well as concerns about the permit costs being passed on to businesses. Wadey suggested arming the business community with talking points as well as the right resources for when they are talking to delivery companies.
On Tuesday, Forrest said the town would work with Wadey and Kenney on the right communication going forward.