Amazon To Expand Same-Day Prime Delivery To All Of Boston… Eventually

Free same-day delivery is a nice perk that millions of Amazon Prime customers in and near major cities nationwide have access to. But not all access is created equal, as a recent investigation found out, and the map of who was being excluded has some unpleasant undertones. In Boston at least, the city with the most obvious delivery hole, Amazon is now changing its tune and will expand service to all residents.

An investigation Bloomberg published last week turned up six major cities where predominantly black parts of town were rather glaringly excluded from eligibility for Amazon’s same-day Prime delivery service. And among all the virtual redlines, perhaps the most glaring of all was in Boston, where service is available into some fairly far-flung ‘burbs but remains conspicuously absent from a concentration of neighborhoods right in the heart of the city:

Bloomberg’s story traveled very quickly and gained a great deal of subsequent media attention. In the following days, state and local politicians, from Boston mayor Marty Walsh to Senator Ed Markey, called on Amazon to fix the problem — a sentiment echoed by residents and nonprofit groups.

A week of that kind of attention appears to have been quite enough for Amazon, which yesterday announced that it would figure out a way to service the whole city of Boston with same-day Prime delivery, the Boston Globe reports.

Granted, it won’t be quick. “We are actively working with our local carrier to enable service to the Roxbury neighborhood in the coming weeks,” Amazon told the Globe. “Once completed, Prime members in every ZIP code in Boston, including the Roxbury neighborhood, will receive Prime Free Same-Day Delivery.”

Mayor Walsh applauded Amazon’s decision to expand service, saying in a statement, “After speaking personally with the executives at Amazon, the company informed me today that they will now be offering same-day service to every neighborhood in Boston. I thank Amazon for this decision, and look forward to its implementation.”

Amazon decides to offer same-day Roxbury delivery [The Boston Globe]