By Manny Grossman

Alternate side of the street parking reduction took baby steps towards implementation at a Nov. 20 joint meeting of Community Board 8's traffic and transportation committee and environment and sanitation committee.

Committee chairs Brad Trebach and Saul Scheinbach, in conjunction with board Chairman Tony Cassino, agreed to set up a "special committee," with the sole charge of studying the issue of reducing alternate side of the street parking neighborhood- wide. All three favor relaxation.

Mr. Cassino said that the new committee will "take on the task of doing the heavy work," such as holding public meetings and "going out to study the streets ourselves."

Committee members overwhelmingly supported the idea of implementing the recently announced Department of Sanitation program of reducing the number of times people need to move their cars if their neighborhoods consistently score 90 or above on the department's "cleanliness scorecard." In 2007, the Riverdale- Kingsbridge area averaged a 97.4 rating.

"I'd like to see this as soon as possible," said Mr. Scheinbach, who touted the environmental benefits such as avoiding "useless trips," by cars and fewer trips by diesel-spewing street sweepers.

Undeserved rating?

But Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who "thinks it's a great idea," cautioned that he would have a "lot more confidence in the ratings if it wasn't Sanitation giving itself the ratings." He doesn't believe Kingsbridge deserved its above-90 score.

"We should be smart about it," he cautioned.

Mr. Trebach agreed. "I've spent years, personally, every day, including today, cleaning up this neighborhood, and I would never endorse something that I thought was in any way dangerous in terms of our sanitation rating," he said.

Riverdale resident Robert Press reminded board members that after Sept. 11, area streets went unswept for almost two months, with no deleterious effect on cleanliness.

'Redeployment is key'