Today Evan Thies, who is running for David Yassky’s City Council seat, has an op-ed in the Daily News written with David Yassky, who is running for NYC Comptroller, about opposite side of the street parking. Thies is currently the Sanitation and Environment Chair of Community Board 1 in Brooklyn.
They make an interesting point. The streets may not to need to be cleaned as often as they are.
According to Thies and Yassky, the Department of Sanitation could save New
Yorkers time, money and stress by cleaning New York’s dirty
streets—not its clean ones.
Reduce the number of times a week we’d have to move the car? Is that possible? It certainly would be an amazing quality of life improvement. Here’s the editorial from the Daily News. See what you think:
The ritual is as much a part of being a New Yorker as loud noises and high prices. Once, twice, or four times a week, most of us with cars do the opposite side of the street parking dance; moving our car from one side of the street to the other to avoid the street cleaner and a big ticket. It’s annoying. But it’s necessary to keep the streets clean, right?
Not necessarily.
Last year, Community Board 6 became the first area of the City to beat back parking regulations that they believed to be overly onerous. They argued effectively that if the streets in their neighborhood were well above the cleanliness standard on a two-day-a-week cleaning schedule per side, then a once-a-week schedule should be enough to get the job done. The City agreed, and new parking signs went up all over Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Red Hook.
After that victory we took a look at North Brooklyn and found that the neighborhoods of Community Board 1 also met the City’s standard for CB6 of three straight years of 90% “acceptable clean streets”. Surely, we thought, the same rules would apply, and opposite side parking would be reduced. But now it turns out there is a different, harder-to-reach standard. The Department of Sanitation has divided community board districts into smaller individual sections, and is requiring that every single one stay above 90% for the parking to be changed community board-wide.
Last year, the City’s annual clean streets average was an immaculate 94.3%—the highest mark ever achieved, and a number which continues to be pushed higher. Clean streets are important, and all New Yorkers appreciate the tireless work of our Sanitation Department. But there still must be a mechanism in place for neighborhoods to limit the frequency of opposite side parking so that New Yorkers aren’t burdened needlessly, and money isn’t spent pointlessly.
We propose that, once a year, when the City reports the cleanliness ratings for each sanitation section, those sections which have reached a rating of 90% clean or above for three consecutive years should be brought up for review. Local community boards and City Council members could then make recommendations, and the Department of Sanitation could make changes based on their suggestions. This would free up resources for problem areas with low ratings and reduce the overall resources the City now uses.
If this system were in place this year, 184 of the 234 sanitation sections across the City would be up for review, and thousands of car owners could be saved the wasted time and gas they spend moving from one side of the street to the other. This would prevent needless pollution that triggers asthma attacks. It would also mitigate the traffic risks to pedestrians and bicyclists that double parking can create.
Perhaps most importantly, reducing the amount of street cleaning in low-need areas would save taxpayers money. At a time when all New Yorkers are tightening their belts to ride out the recession, and the Sanitation Department is already cutting back on essential services such as trash pick-up, a more efficient street cleaning program could net millions of dollars a year in critical savings to plug the deficit or pay for cleaning in the neighborhoods that really need it.
Of course, reducing opposite side parking is not a cure-all. A recent study by Transportation Alternatives showed that charging more for curbside parking helps businesses, and that residential parking permits can help reduce traffic. Reducing the amount of time when there is no parking for street cleaning from the typical 90 minutes to a more reasonable 30 minutes would also be a step forward. We should consider taking these steps as well toward making New York a more livable city for New Yorkers.
The Department of Sanitation should implement our proposal to save New Yorkers time, money and stress. Let’s clean New York’s dirty streets—not its clean ones.
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