New York City – The Bronx is Breathing
Reimagining a Cleaner Hunts Point With Zero-Emission Trucks
The Hunts Point peninsula – a South Bronx community that’s home to numerous waste transfer facilities and the nation’s largest wholesale food hub – sees over 15,000 truck trips each workday. Freight traffic and industrial operations have contributed to poor air quality, with children in Hunts Point hospitalized for asthma at nearly 2.5 times the average New York City rate.
These challenges informed the development of a partnership between Volvo 
and the Greater Hunts Point Economic Development Corporation and other local partners to deploy electric trucks in the area, including Class 6 and 8 EV trucks and an electric refuse truck. Some of these trucks will feature electric transport refrigeration units (eTRUs). These vehicles will model zero-emissions transportation solutions in Hunts Point’s two dominant industries: food and waste.
The EVs will be supported by a freight-focused charging hub on an industrial brownfield site, as well as an initiative to support cooperative use of EV trucks for local produce deliveries. These solutions seek to lower financial and technical barriers to EV adoption and broaden access to electric vehicles in the freight sector. In aggregate, these solutions will model a new paradigm for electric truck deployment.
Project Progress
How Volvo is Electrifying Hunts Point’s Trucking Fleets
With support from local organizations, Volvo is bringing electric trucking operations, electrification infrastructure and electrification education to Hunts Point in the South Bronx — helping to improve the community’s health, comfort, and accessibility to sustainable transportation options for years to come.
Assessing the Needs
Home to the nation’s largest wholesale food distribution hub, the Hunts Point peninsula has a longstanding history of freight traffic and air quality challenges. Over 15,000 diesel-fueled trucks drive through the neighborhood each day, contributing to high asthma rates for residents in the area. This highlighted a meaningful opportunity for Volvo and their partners to make a difference in the lives of Hunts Point residents with their electric truck fleet vehicles, development of a major commercial electric truck and vehicle charging facility, and community initiatives with training and workforce development programs.
Through NYSERDA's New York Clean Transportation Prizes (NYCTP) initiative, Volvo partnered with Greater Hunts Point Economic Development Corporation (GHPEDC) 
, The POINT Community Development Corporation , Public Works Partners , Barretto Bay Strategies , Empire Clean Cities , Royal Waste , City Harvest , and the Fulton Fish Market (FFM) as project partners for realizing the opportunity. Construction of the public freight-focused charging hub with development partner MN8 will take place over the next couple of years. In the near term, a collaboration with FFM will enable the construction of a secondary charging site and electric vehicle distribution services for vendors at the FFM, helping move toward cleaner air for the Hunts Point community and improve accessibility to sustainable transportation opportunities.
Co-Creating the Solution
GHPEDC and The POINT Community Development Corporation have provided a link to the Hunts Point community for collecting feedback and sharing information, organizing several events to engage residents about the project’s plans and intended benefits. This included a series of public meetings to gather local input for the design of the community center features, including charging hubs, and culminated in the development of a Community Benefit Agreement, which can be updated as the project progresses, and ensures that the community shares in the benefits of the project.
Food delivery trucks at FFM will feature electric transport refrigeration units and an expanded cooperative service launched under this project will provide jobs and a new service for FFM vendors to consolidate their deliveries using shared, clean transportation. These solutions are modeling zero-emissions transportation in Hunts Point’s two dominant industries: food and waste. Because of these new additions to the market, the people of Hunts Point will benefit across various aspects of life and work.
A second, larger charging hub at another Hunts Point location will be built in the coming several years, and will increase electric charging availability in the area. Additionally, the project’s workforce development component, currently underway, is preparing for future jobs in the community by offering residents the opportunity to get a commercial driver’s license and training in electric truck operation.
Inspiring the Change
NYSERDA’s NYCTP initiative was a key driver of change and success for Hunts Point; offering funding and support to Volvo and partners allowed them to assemble their team of experts from the community and industry that adeptly executed this large-scale and ambitious project.
Volvo’s project has replicable elements that can become an example for other organizations looking to achieve electric transportation opportunities that benefit their residents and the environment simultaneously — a key element for growing climate-friendly practices in transportation and limiting greenhouse gas emissions in our communities.