City gives alternate side parkers a break

The Department of Sanitation is planning to cut down on street sweeping, allowing residents to park for days at a time.
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By N. Clark Judd

The city Department of Sanitation has agreed on sweeping changes to street cleaning in Riverdale and Kingsbridge.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Monday a Department of Sanitation proposal to clean each side of the Riverdale and Kingsbridge area’s residential streets once a week rather than twice — that’s two days of alternate-side parking regulations per street, rather than four — and commercial streets six days a week.

In a Monday press release, the mayor credited the idea to discussion at a civic meeting at PS 24 in October 2007. Community Board 8 established a committee to explore the issue and come up with a report, which the board as a whole adopted this past March and sent to Sanitation.

The proposal expands on Board 8’s initial request to curtail street sweeping in parts of the community district it oversees. Instead, according to the press release, Sanitation will reduce street sweeping along every residential street in the district where the streets are cleaned. Though the commercial streets, including the Broadway corridor and Riverdale Avenue in North Riverdale, will be swept six days a week, that cleaning will happen between 7 and 9:30 a.m., before peak shopping hours.

“As they looked at the district, first of all, our numbers are good everywhere,” said Board 8 traffic and transportation committee chairman Tony Cassino, the plan’s chief booster. “Secondly, there are some logistics for them that may make it harder to do certain areas and not others.”

Most areas would be cleaned during the same time of day they’re cleaned on now, said Mr. Cassino, just on different days.

Saul Scheinbach, chair of Community Board 8’s environment and sanitation committee, applauded the announcement.

“I’ll tell you of all the things that I’ve been involved in in my public life that I discuss with my friends and neighbors, this is the one they show the most interest in,” he said. “All the other issues they kind of listen and they kind of start to fall asleep.”

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz had also called for a reform of alternate-side parking rules, and former Board 8 member Ari Hoffnung — who, like Mr. Cassino, is already campaigning for next year’s City Council election — announced a petition drive on the same issue this fall.

While those involved in the creation of the plan were ecstatic, one local driver was concerned about whether the streets would stay clean.

“Parking-wise, it’s going to be great for a lot of people because they’re not going to have to move their car,” said Jessie Lahoz, a West 259th Street resident, as she waited in her car outside a Broadway apartment building to pick up her child. “But then, you know, are we going to have dirty streets? That’s going to be a concern.”

The plan takes its cue from the city’s decision to curb the number of days alternate-side parking rules are enforced in Brooklyn’s Community Board 6, which comprises Park Slope, Red Hook, and Carroll Gardens. That decision was implemented earlier this year.

Craig Hammerman, the district manager for that board, told The Press after the plan was implemented that just because a street is cleaned half as often, won’t necessarily make it twice as dirty.

The city will present its plan, the result of months of backand- forth between the board and city officials, for a vote by Board 8 on Jan. 13, according to the release.

In Brooklyn’s case, the decision to go forward was followed by two months without alternate- side parking rules, as the Department of Transportation installed signs outlining the new ones.

This is part of the December 18, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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