Car shipping in the Bronx, NY

Where a 75-foot hauler actually meets you in the Bronx

New York City restricts big trucks to designated truck routes. In the Bronx that means the Major Deegan (I-87), the Cross Bronx (I-95), the Bruckner (I-278/I-95) and the surface routes that feed them, like Bruckner Boulevard, Webster Avenue and Fordham Road. The Hutchinson River, Bronx River and Henry Hudson parkways are closed to trucks, with low stone overpasses that will take the top off a hauler. And the Cross Bronx is regularly measured as the slowest interstate in the country, so most carriers stage in Hunts Point or along the Bruckner corridor and come off the Deegan at Exits 1 through 5 for a Concourse or Highbridge pickup.

So the honest answer to "will the truck come to my door" is: usually to within a few blocks. The spots that work:

• Yankee Stadium parking lots on non-game days, especially along River Avenue and 153rd Street. We check the home schedule before we book.
• Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market, right off Exit 5 of the Deegan, with wide aisles and easy access back to the highway.
• Big-box lots along Bruckner Boulevard and Bay Plaza in Co-op City for the East Bronx, Pelham Bay, Throggs Neck and Country Club.
• Fordham Road retail near Fordham Plaza for Belmont, Norwood and Kingsbridge.

For Mott Haven, Melrose and Morrisania, Bruckner Boulevard near the Third Avenue Bridge is often the closest safe pull-off; for Soundview and Parkchester, the plazas on the Bruckner service road.

Getting the car out of the garage and off alternate-side parking

Most Bronx car owners keep the car in a monthly garage, a co-op lot or on the street under alternate-side rules, and each one is a timing problem. If the car is in a garage, some attendants on the Concourse and in Riverdale will not release a car to a driver who is not on the account. Be there for the handoff, or leave keys and a signed release with the garage. A dead battery after months in a Montefiore staff garage is common; tell us and we will send a truck with a winch.

If the car is on the street, do not move it to the meeting spot days early. A car parked on Grand Concourse or Jerome Avenue for three days waiting on a truck gets ticketed on street-cleaning day, booted, or broken into, and catalytic converter theft is a real concern here. You get the driver's phone number so you can move the car to the lot an hour before he arrives. And if the car is in a co-op lot in Riverdale, Parkchester or Co-op City, check whether the gate needs a resident to let the carrier in.

Who ships a car from the Bronx, and where it is going

Bronx auto transport is driven by a few predictable groups.

• Students at Fordham University and Lehman College. Fordham's Rose Hill campus is wedged between Belmont and the Botanical Garden with almost no student parking, so out-of-state families ship a car up in August and home in May. Lehman in Kingsbridge Heights sends us transfer students too.
• Hospital staff on rotation. Montefiore in Norwood, Jacobi in Morris Park and Lincoln in Mott Haven bring in residents and travel nurses for months at a time, many from the South or Midwest, who want the car shipped back out when the rotation ends.
• Yankees seasonal staff. Game-day and front-office employees who spend April to October near the stadium and head somewhere warmer afterward.
• Families relocating. The big outbound corridors from the Bronx are Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Texas. A family leaving Co-op City for Charlotte or Orlando usually ships one car and drives the other, and we time the shipped one to arrive a day or two after they do.
• Out-of-state car purchases. Plenty of residents buy from dealers in Pennsylvania, Ohio or Florida and have the car delivered to a lot near home rather than flying out to drive it back.

Shipping a car from the Bronx to Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic

The Bronx has one of the largest Puerto Rican and Dominican communities in the country, and people moving back, or sending a car to family on the island, need to get it to a port. The ocean carriers sailing to San Juan and Santo Domingo load out of the Port Newark and Elizabeth terminals, and some routings go through Jacksonville, Florida.

Here is what we do and do not do. We handle the ground leg: picking the car up in the Bronx and delivering it to the port terminal or the ocean carrier's receiving yard on the date they have given you, with the paperwork they require at the gate. We do not book or guarantee the ocean freight; the vessel booking, port and island-side fees, and clearance on arrival are between you and the ocean line or your forwarder.

The Bronx to Elizabeth run is short in miles and long in traffic. If your ocean carrier's cutoff is a Friday, we schedule port delivery for Wednesday or Thursday so a bad day on the Cross Bronx does not cost you a sailing.

Open or enclosed for a Bronx pickup

For a daily driver going to a relative in Georgia or a student car heading home to Texas, an open carrier is the right call and it is what most Bronx auto transport runs on, at roughly half the price of enclosed.

Enclosed makes sense for a specific Bronx crowd: the car-show and tuner community, from the lowriders and classic Impalas at the summer meets near Orchard Beach to the muscle cars and Hondas that line up along Bruckner Boulevard on weekend nights. If you are sending a show car to Carlisle, or moving a restored Chevelle out of a Throggs Neck garage to the Carolinas, an enclosed trailer keeps it away from road grit and out of sight at truck stops, and enclosed rigs often carry a liftgate, which helps with lowered cars. Expect roughly 40 to 60 percent more than open.

Riverdale, City Island and the corners a truck will not go

A few Bronx neighborhoods need extra planning.

Riverdale and Fieldston sit on a hill between the Henry Hudson Parkway and Broadway, with narrow, steep, curving streets. A carrier has to come up Broadway or Riverdale Avenue, and most side streets above 236th are not realistic for a full-size hauler. We usually meet Riverdale customers along Broadway near Van Cortlandt Park or at the lots on Riverdale Avenue in the 230s.

City Island is reachable only by the City Island Bridge, so we meet on the mainland near the Pelham Bay Park lots or at Bay Plaza.

Woodlawn and Wakefield, up against the Yonkers line, are easy: close to the Deegan, with wider blocks on Katonah Avenue and White Plains Road where a truck can stop. Hunts Point is easiest of all, since carriers already stage near the Produce Market and the industrial blocks south of the Bruckner allow true door-to-door.

Where we pick up around The Bronx

Door-to-door service covers these communities from the The Bronx office, along with the rest of Bronx County. If you do not see your town, the quote tool prices any ZIP code.

Popular routes from The Bronx

Typical prices for a running mid-size sedan on an open carrier, booked about a week ahead. Enclosed trailers, oversized vehicles and peak-season dates run higher; the quote tool gives you the exact number.

Questions from The Bronx customers