Monday, August 26, 2024
Friday, May 5, 2023
Department Of Sanitation Alternatives plans to usurp parking spaces for trash bins
Same thing. Times Square. No longer brand new. Sludge, stench. pic.twitter.com/qQ1IJHAOur
— Andrew Fine (@AFineBlogger) January 12, 2023
New York City, where sidewalks have long been overrun by foul-smelling heaps of garbage bags that force passers-by to yield to oncoming rat traffic, is about to try a not-so-novel idea to solve the problem.
The concept, known as trash containerization, seems simple enough: Get trash off the streets and into containers. The strategy has been used successfully in cities across Europe and Asia, like Barcelona and Singapore.
But in New York, nothing is that simple.
In a highly anticipated new report being released on Wednesday, city sanitation officials estimate that it would be possible to move trash to containers on 89 percent of the city’s residential streets. To do so, however, will require removing 150,000 parking spots, and up to 25 percent of parking spots on some blocks.
The report does not address the cost of implementing trash containerization citywide, but it could easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade. City officials must buy new specialized trash trucks and stationary containers, while also increasing the frequency of trash collection in large swaths of the city.
The new approach could revolutionize trash collection in New York. Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat in his second year in office, has said attacking trash is one of his priorities, framing it as part of broader efforts to improve quality of life in the city after the disruption of the pandemic. He has hired a new rat czar with a “killer instinct” for slaying rats.
But embracing trash containers will require trade-offs, including sacrificing more parking spots than were taken for outdoor dining or the city’s popular bike-share program — both of which stirred pockets of outrage.
The city’s sanitation commissioner, Jessica Tisch, said in a statement that sanitation officials were working hard to remove trash more quickly, including setting new hours for placing trash on the curb, and that trash containerization was the critical next step.
“Mayor Adams wants a permanent solution, something like what other global cities have that takes our sidewalks back from the black bags — and from the rats,” she said. “The detailed street-level analysis in this report shows, for the first time, that containerization — in the form of individual bins and shared containers — actually is viable across the vast majority of the five boroughs.”
The new trash program would look different across the city depending on the block. For a single-family home in eastern Queens, residents could be required to use individual bins for trash, recycling and compost. On a block lined with six-story apartment buildings in northern Manhattan, the street could get a dozen large aboveground containers — artist renderings suggest a cross between a dumpster and a giant laundry bin — placed in parking spaces.
By this fall, the city will start a major new pilot program in West Harlem, in Community Board 9, that will install large trash containers in parking spots on up to 10 residential blocks and at more than a dozen schools. On residential blocks, trash collection will double from three times a week to six.
At a time when Mr. Adams is cutting spending across city agencies, he included more than $5.6 million for the pilot program in his latest executive budget proposal — a sign of his commitment to the idea, city officials said.
Shaun Abreu, a City Council member who represents West Harlem, said in a statement that he was excited for the neighborhood to be a part of the pilot program and that it would “make a real difference and teach the city a lot about the path forward.”
The city’s 95-page new report examined trash containerization in cities across the world that have been experimenting with the idea for 15 years and analyzed the program’s feasibility in each neighborhood. In the United States, San Francisco and Chicago remove garbage bags from the streets, mostly using individual bins and Chicago’s famed alleyways which New York City does not have.
New York City is a bit of a global pariah when it comes to trash. On garbage days in Manhattan, towers of fetid trash bags line the streets, with food and liquids oozing on to sidewalks. Sanitation workers carry out the Sisyphean task of carting away 24 million pounds of trash and recycling every day.
Other cities have successfully reined in their garbage. Amsterdam uses underground storage and electric boats. Singapore and other cities use a pneumatic pressure chute system. Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Paris rely on shared and individual trash containers, providing the most useful examples of what is possible in New York, city officials said.
The report was written by Sanitation Department staffers and informed by a study by McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm, that was initially reported to cost $4 million. The city ultimately paid McKinsey & Company $1.6 million for the study, city officials said.
Ms. Tisch said in an interview that it was too early to provide an estimate for the total cost. But she acknowledged that the cost was “not inexpensive.”
“It is one of the most massive, complicated infrastructure programs this city can undertake over the next decade because it affects every borough, every neighborhood, every block and frankly every resident in the City of New York,” she said.
Parking is one of the third rails of New York City politics, and the plan could face pushback in some communities. The city has roughly 3 million free street parking spots. Trash containerization would remove up to 10 percent of available parking spots on residential streets citywide, compared to less than 1 percent of parking spots removed for outdoor dining. Citi Bike, the city’s bike-share program, has taken about half of a percent of curb space in its service area for bike docks, according to the company.
On 11 percent of the city’s most densely populated residential streets in places like Lower Manhattan, the city found that it was not feasible to install containers because there was not enough street space for the trash produced in those areas.
Saturday, July 9, 2022
Sanitation ASP miracle workers
Today is the first day of full restored Alternate Side Parking…and our streets are crying out for your help. Will you move your car? (and thanks @SarahMcLachlan) https://t.co/4iZ4yD234E pic.twitter.com/41kfJLO46y
— NYC Sanitation (@NYCSanitation) July 5, 2022
Attached is the data that DSNY is using to justify bringing back 4 day a week alternate sides.
How could it be possible that CB5 went from 100% clean streets in January to 30% clean streets in February?
How does CB11 consistently have 100% of its streets clean?
Has anyone in govt ever questioned this data? It seems to be flawed.
What obviously hasn't been questioned by government and the clueless morons mocking citizens with their juked data and asinine tik tok video is the huge role restaurant shanties play in the pollution on the city streets. At least you can move a car.
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Move it or get booted
New York City’s alternate-side parking rules are coming back in full force on July 5, meaning most motorists will once again have to move their cars twice a week for street sweeping.
The announcement from Mayor Adams is a reversal of changes ordered by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. That policy — put in place March 17, 2020 — required drivers on most residential streets to move their cars just one day a week instead of twice.
De Blasio’s order was intended to help people stay inside to combat the virus, but has remained in place for more than two years. That’s given car owners an extended break while also allowing the city’s streets to become dirtier.
It went on for far too long and it largely sidelined the best clean streets tool in our arsenal: the mechanical broom,” city Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during a news conference on her first day as head of the department. “The dirty little secret here is that when ASP went to one day a week instead of two in practice it was like having no cleaning on many blocks in the city.”
Adams touted the return to pre-pandemic alternate side rules as part of an effort to “clean up the streets.”
Some streets in the city had alternate-side parking three or more days a week before the pandemic. Officials said those would be restored — and promised $65 tickets to drivers who break the rules.
Sean Bellamy, a car owner who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn said more enforcement was a welcome return to normal.
“Most people don’t move for the sweepers now,” said Bellamy, 55, a contractor. “The streets are way dirtier now than they used to be. I move my car, but other people don’t.”
Friday, October 22, 2021
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Rockaway streets flood after 20 inches of snow; city waits too long to dig out South Queens
After a storm of the magnitude the New York area faced Monday and Tuesday, digging out will take not only some strength and heavy equipment, but some skill as well.
Many homeowners in Queens were at it all day, but some were frustrated to see people shoveling and putting the snow right back into the street.
It’s counterproductive to Department of Sanitation plow truck driver Phillip Covington. It only makes his job harder.
"If you want a piece of advice: don't throw it back on the street, put it on the side," he said.
A 20-year veteran of the department, Covington knows a thing or two about clearing snow, even when it’s more than a foot.
“Just throw it on a mound, like a pile or a mound of snow," Covington said.
Covington's seen it all but there's still something different about this storm.
“This is like a nuisance type of storm because it snowed and then it stopped for a minute and then it wants to rain," Covington said.
Driving through Queens, for the most part PIX11 found blacktop, but Sanitation Commissioner Edward Grayson admitted plow trucks were still trying to make it to all residential streets
“Were out there through the night, out all day today," he said. "We will readdress those residential streets. You will see blacktop today.”
When it floods in Rockaway Beach, it really floods.
Resident Mona Hubbard said, “It's like a river down there, you need a rowboat to get out of here.”
Hubbard recorded video Tuesday from her apartment as she watched her neighbor fight through coastal flood waters.
She described her street, Beach 84th Street, Wednesday.
“It’s snows then the high tide comes up so it overflows and it’s like the Antarctica her out here," she said.
It's an on going problem for people who live on her block. Citizen App video showed a city sanitation truck being swept away —the water right up to the door.
Long time resident Wanda McDowell said she feels like a prisoner in her own home whenever there is high tide or a storm.
“We are trapped in," she said. "We can’t go anywhere.”
Monday, July 27, 2020
City's Get Food deliveries for poor people devastated by the pandemic gets dumped on the curb
Piles of unopened boxes of emergency city coronavirus meals meant for the poor were found dumped on the side of a Queens underpass Monday.
The outrageous sign of waste — after Mayor Bill de Blasio predicted up to 2 million New Yorkers would go hungry this summer amid the pandemic — was enough to make passers-by sick.
“Why wouldn’t you go give it to people in the streets?” local resident Juan Heno said of the 34 brown cardboard boxes of food piled on top of each other along a concrete wall below the Queens Midtown Expressway, around 57-45 74th St., in Middle Village.
“The city has a lot of homeless right now,” Heno noted to The Post.
The resident said he spotted the boxes — slapped with white labels and black lettering reading, “GetFoodNYC, COVID-19 Emergency Food Distribution, Packed on July 24th, Delivery by July 31st” — in the broiling heat around 9:30 a.m.
He said he called the city’s 311 hot line and was told someone would pick them up — but they were still laying out in the sun more than eight hours later.
Inside the boxes — part of the de Blasio administration’s much-touted program to feed the hungry during the country’s economic crisis — were plastic containers filled with food.
Some of the containers, marked “VEGETARIAN” and “CONTAINS NUTS,” held a bag of multigrain pretzel Pepperidge Farm goldfish, what appeared to be a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich and a small plastic container with part of a granola bar.
PB & J and pretzel fish crackers is a vegetarian meal. This administration's warped semantics manifests itself even when they are being charitable. Soulless.
Spoiler alert: this should have been expected when the Sanitation Dept. was tasked to handle the logistics and distribution of this emergency program.
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
DSNY, please clean this up!
Thanks..."
- anonymous
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Coliseum Gym gone but they left their crap behind
Coliseum Gym is now OUT OF BUSINESS...but they left a bunch of junk on sidewalk..." - anonymous
More photos of the mess here.
Saturday, July 7, 2018
Composting program not progressing as planned
The city’s Department of Sanitation is delaying plans to expand curbside collections of compostable kitchen and yard waste beyond the program’s current footprint.
But DSNY officials say neighborhoods that already place their waste in brown bins for recycling will continue receiving the service while the city looks to adjust some aspects of the program.
“We believe that for the program to be successful over the long term, we must ensure New Yorkers are getting the very best service when curbside organics collection reaches their neighborhoods,” the DSNY said in a statement to the Chronicle. “To achieve this, the City is evaluating its current service with the goal of increasing efficiencies and streamlining the program and has temporarily placed the schedule for expanding the curbside organics program on hold.”
The agency expects to have a modified expansion schedule in the coming months.
The DSNY said it is expanding its outreach effort in communities that are slated to join the program soon after it restarts.
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Removed trash baskets cause dumpers to trash neighborhoods
This PIX11 story is about a residential area in Harlem having their street corner trash baskets removed, however we're aware that this seems to be happening all over the city, even in commercial areas. There's a backwards logic that removing cans means people won't dump trash, which just is not the case.
Saturday, June 23, 2018
Trying to end a pervasive problem
From CBS 2:
The Department of Sanitation said it is illegal to posts signs or ads on poles, boxes, highways, elevated subways or similar public locations. The department said it does give out fines ranging from $75 to $300.
A spokesperson added that research has shown most of the companies use a prepaid phone, which makes it difficult to identify a responsible party. But they do also subpoena phone companies.
Avella said it’s not enough.
“Acknowledging the problem and not fixing it isn’t getting us anywhere. I’m willing to sit down with Sanitation and especially the phone companies,” he said. “We have to end this, because this is out of control.”
Grymes called five of the numbers on various signs, and someone answered at each number.
She got two hang-ups, but three others said they work for legitimate businesses that do offer money for cars and car parts. They would not consent to being recorded and would not give the name of the business or did not know it. Two said the sanitation department does fine them often for the signs, but that doesn’t stop them.
Avella said you shouldn’t take up the offers and the Better Business Bureau also recommends checking with them first to see if the business has any reviews or complains on file. That is, if you know the name.
The sanitation department said a special unit removes illegal signs unless it’s too dangerous or difficult, then the Department of Transportation does it. You can call 311 to report an illegal sign.
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Familiar excuses from DSNY
From CBS 2:
A Brooklyn block has been turned into a junkyard where public parking spaces are filled with wrecked and damaged cars.
Calls to 311 went unanswered. So CBS2 demanded answers and got action.
A frustrated Sheepshead Bay resident took CBS2’s Political Reporter Marcia Kramer on a tour of his block. He said he and his neighbors have been unable to park in public spaces for years because they’re filled with junked cars, like one with no motor and no doors. He said more than 40 to 50 calls to the city for help have fallen on deaf ears.
“They say they’re going to send somebody out… but no one shows up,” he said.
The block was filled with damaged cars and apparent attempts to beat the system by leaving cars on the streets with no license plates or registrations scraped off.
Kramer demanded answers from the owners of the nearby auto body shops and called both the Department of Sanitation and the NYPD. There were a lot of excuses, she reported.
This happens in EVERY neighborhood where there is an auto body shop. It would seem that Sanitation would make a gold mine off this issue but they'd rather send out bogus tickets to homeowners for gum wrappers that blow onto residential property. What a shame.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Water towers are kind of gross
Despite years of reforms, new data reveal widespread neglect in the thousands of weathered wooden water tanks that supply drinking water to millions of New York City residents. A review of city records indicates that most building owners still do not inspect and clean their tanks as the law has required for years, even after revisions to the health and administrative codes that now mandate annual filings.
There are still many thousands of water tanks across the city for which there is no information at all. The city can’t even say with certainty how many there are or where they are located, much less their condition – even well-maintained water tanks accumulate layers of muck and bacterial slime.
Building owners who do self-report the condition of their water tanks provide suspiciously spotless descriptions on annual inspection reports. These reports include bacteriological test results, but in almost every case the tests are conducted only after the tanks have been disinfected, making it a meaningless metric for determining the typical quality of a building’s drinking water. And regulators have issued dramatically fewer violations in recent years.
The data show that the city reported drinking water tanks on municipal buildings, including the city sanitation offices and several court buildings, tested positive for E. coli, a marker used by public health experts to predict the presence of potentially dangerous viruses and bacteria. Oversight remains lax: It took health officials more than a year to investigate several isolated reports of E. coli in drinking water tanks. After inquiries from City & State, however, officials now say that their own reports were erroneous.
But scientists at the federal Environmental Protection Agency and public health experts consulted by City & State warned that animals can easily get into New York City’s water tanks, that mucky sediments inside the tanks may contain pathogens and that poorly maintained water tanks could be the source of disease outbreaks.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Push to use video as evidence for littering summonses
A Sanitation Department official told the Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association last Thursday that the agency would “love” to use camera footage in its enforcement of littering laws, but can’t because of the law.
“It does help our enforcement because usually its ritualized,” said Nicholas Circharo, community affairs liaison for the DSNY. “They do it every morning. We would love to use the footage.”
Right now, Sanitation enforcement agents must catch a litterer in the act to write him or her a summons and are not allowed to use video evidence against an illegal dumper.
Councilman Bob Holden (D-Middle Village) said earlier in the meeting that he’d be interested in writing a bill that would allow the agency to use surveillance equipment to keep streets clean.
Litter laws are a top issue for the WRBA, and it’s discussed at almost every one of the civic’s meetings. Circharo was asked to appear at the May one to answer a few questions from WRBA President Steve Forte and other residents.
Many complained that summonses are often written to homeowners and merchants for trash left behind by other people in front of their property — some businesses have been issued thousands of dollars in violations.
Friday, May 11, 2018
Monday, March 5, 2018
Woodside CSX tracks are a mess
From CBS 2:
“Here, where it’s a private company and private property, it’s impossible for the city to even get in there,” City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer told Duddridge.
Neighbors are now adding rodents to their list of complaints, saying the animals are running rampant.
“We don’t now want the rats and mice and whatever seeping into our homes and apartments,” said Corrao.
The New York City Department of Sanitation says its cleaning unit inspected the area last month. It says CSX has been notified and has seven to 10 days to either clean up or sanitation crews will at the company’s expense.
There’s still one more hurdle – the sanitation department can’t clean up the property until a judge grants crews a warrant to enter the grounds.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Middle Village being dumped on
I am attaching pics I took this morning....this is on 75th Street in Middle Village. This is the side of the Coliseum Gym at 75-09 71 Avenue Middle Village.
This has been this way for several months....I have called Sanitation Garage in Maspeth....they have not come and issued ticket ...I am assuming because then it would have been cleaned up.
This is a mine field of junk...the snow has melted ...they never shoveled...this side street....I believe its there responsibility, if its their business. I just dont know how they get away with this....they must know someone at Sanitation.
What else can be done...this should definitely in the Hall of Shame....
Regards, Anonymous
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Legislation introduced to force junk car removal
Councilman Alan Maisel (D–Marine Park) has penned new legislation that would require the city to haul away cars abandoned without plates within one month of a do-gooder making a complaint, the local pol announced during a Community Board 18 meeting on Oct. 24.
Hundreds of derelict cars have lingered for months on his district’s streets over the years, vexing communities already strapped for parking spaces — so it’s about time the city follow its own rules and tow them away, said Maisel.
“There are a couple of hundred cars that have to be towed, and the city, for whatever reason, has chosen not to take this issue as a priority,” he said. “The legislation is putting the city on the spot to force them to do what they should be doing.”
Currently, once someone files a complaint about an abandoned vehicle without any plates, the Department of Sanitation is supposed to investigate within three days, tag it if it’s a complete wreck, and then remove it within another three days, according to a spokesman for New York’s Strongest. If it looks still in working order, then it’s up to the police department to haul it off, the spokesman said. And the police don’t have a time limit for towing away plateless cars.
The city has fallen short of its duties to address quality-of-life issues such as derelict cars dumped on the street, and it’s leaving locals fed up, said Maisel.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
An all-too-familiar problem
I recently attended the Community Council meeting at the 105th precinct. I expressed my concerns about an illegal businesses being run out of a residential home on 107-16 Springfield Blvd in Queens Village. These individuals are fixing cars at all hours of the day right on Springfield blvd. In the process, they are dumping oil all over the street and sidewalks, and discarding oil down the sewer drains which eventually drains into Jamaica Bay. They have a tractor trailer parked in the driveway, and a full blown junkyard in the backyard! A couple residents at the meeting expressed concerns about this place as well, since it's bringing down the quality of life in our neighborhood and devaluing our homes. The community affairs officer told me that they'll be paying them a visit, and she'll contact the DEP. I also contacted the NYS DEC Police twice and they were very helpful. I also filed 311 complaints with the DSNY and DOB, for the messy conditions, illegal parking of the tractor trailer, and of course the junkyard in the back. I just want to show your readers some of the ghetto nonsense that we deal with in SE Qns on a daily basis. Thanks.
- Philster
