Less Street Cleaning

Man this would be so sweet. But street cleaning is blatantly a revenue generator for the city so I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah who needs all those street sweepers everyday especially since the homeowner is responsible for cleaning 18" of the street from the curb. What's left over for them to sweep? Once a week is enough. :?:

Please, the streets in Clinton Hill are dirty. Street cleaning twice a week is necessary.
If it changes to once a week, we'd have people complaining that the streets are dirty and should be cleaned more often.

For minute issues such as this, instead of complaining, try complying.

arZan wrote: Just to go Park Slope and you will see. They made a concerted effort over months to get the waiver.

Actually they fought to KEEP a reduction in street cleaning rules. The Department of Sanitation implemented the reduction.

Beginning in July 2000, the New York City Department of Sanitation (DOS) reduced the Street Cleaning Regulations (SCR) as a “pilot reduction” in an area of Park Slope, Brooklyn from 2-days of cleaning a week per blockface to 1-day a week. The pilot reduction plan was formulated exclusively by DOS without the benefit of consultation or notification to the Community Board. The Community Board only became aware of the pilot reduction when SCR signage was in the process of being physically altered. Inquiries made to the Community Board’s District Office pursued with DOS revealed that the department had unilaterally decided to implement a pilot reduction.

On November 4, 2002 the CB6 District Manager received a telephone call from the department announcing that the pilot reduction area was going to be changed back to the original regulations imminently. The only reason stated was that the change has had a “negative impact on cleanliness.” After much zealous lobbying by both individual residents and elected officials representing the area, DOS backed off their initial threat. Thousands upon thousands of signatures were obtained by the CB6 to demonstrate how widespread popular support was behind the idea of keeping the pilot reduction.

But you might be able to get Park Slope's CSR revoked.

Based on the percent level of acceptably clean streets with the one day SCR, it is lesser than the ones in our community board's two days SCR. Using the mayor's office numbers at Dec 06 98% of streets were clean in CB 2 and 96% in CB 6. These numbers might make the DOS revoke the one day SCR in Park Slope, but I doubt they will implement them here. Bloomberg's way of revenue for the city is through tickets and that is not changing.

piratesofwaverly wrote: Then again, what do I know - I think all public parking should cost money and we should implement tolls for use in congested area/times. There are costs to cars that society bears - time to charge that back to users.

I couldn't agree more.

arZan, I'm not sure where you read anything about cars being bad in my post. I also never mentioned that property taxes are too high. I simply stated a preference for parking tickets over higher property taxes. That being said, economic research and common sense as well as history show that excessive tax rates drive away business and homeowners. These two constituencies are the foundation of any viable urban economy. Look at what happened to Philadelphia when they implemented a city tax. If you have to choose between those who are actually investing in the city through ownership and those owning cars for leisure, any responsible politician will choose to tax car drivers.

If you NEED a car to get to work or cart your kids around or move lumber or whatever else then cars are fine. If you only move your car once a week it seems as if its not a need (defined as necessary for work or family reasons).

You seem to like having the mobility and freedom of a car... This is also fine. But the fact you just don't want to deal with the hassle of moving the car that you drive once a week and don't really NEED just seems lazy. Why should your car that you drive once a week sit on the street all week and take up a space that people who actually use their cars may need?

Again stop complaining, comply with parking regulations or pay for a garage...

Property taxes too low? Are you kidding? Not to encourage our Republican tax-and-spend overlords, but I'm always floored by how inexpensive are NYC property taxes. They certainly nicke-and-dime you in other places, but property taxes are not where I usually see this happening.

Hear, hear - more sidewalk cleaning! Street cleaning needs to happen more often too. Twice a week might do, for starters. Certainly, street-cleaning frequency has nothing to do with the parking rules requiring people to move their cars 2/week. Hmm, I actually think the 'churn' is good if they're not going to install meters or some other system.
It discourages casual car possession.

George Bush Sr. raised taxes. So Republicans have been trying to increase taxes since around 1989. That's since when.

I have a question: how do the "street cleaners" actually clean the streets? All I see them do is scrub the gutters with those giant brushes and throw trash everywhere.

Nathan wrote: There's two things goiing on Boygariel.

1. They spray a little bit of water out in front of the brushes (when the weather is right).

2. Both of those brushes turn toward the center of the sweeper and then there's another cylindrical brush behind them that sweeps stuff up into a hopper. (If you're in the right place at the right time, you'll see the sweepers meeting up with a garbage truck to empty the hopper into the truck.)

They don't get everything, but based on what I've seen them dump into the trucks they get a hell of a lot.

Not perfect but MUCH better than nothing.

That makes me feel much better. For years I assumed they were doing nothing but rearranging the trash on the streets.

Pikesville wrote: Is this the thread to complain about the City refusing to suspend ASP tomorrow? As I sit here, I can hear tires spinning in the snow. The street better be spotless when I come home tomorrow night.

They didn't suspend it today (Thurs.)!? There's three inches of ice up and down both sides of my street. I'd LOVE to see how the street cleaner does with that.

On Thursday nobody on my block seemed to move their cars. I didn't see any tickets but I wasn't looking closely. This morning everyone had moved their car for the ASP.

I moved my car last night, it was a pain but I got it done. I had to climb up and over a short snow (ice) bank in order to get into a spot. I love my Volvo and all, but it's not built for that!