OPINION> Commentary
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OPINION> Commentary
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Dusty tales from the city that never sweeps
By Pat Nelson (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-17 07:33 As if part of a carefully choreographed dance, at strict intervals, countless New Yorkers run from their homes and move their cars from the right side of the street to the left and from the left to the right. These rituals of alternate-side parking, enforced by hefty fines and humiliatingly fluorescent window stickers, help make way for the Department of Sanitation's street sweepers, which pass through our neighborhoods every day except Wednesday, when everyone gets a reprieve. But even though New Yorkers dutifully surrender their coveted parking spaces to accommodate the Sanitation Department, street cleaners don't always, well, clean the streets. After the plumes of dust whip by and the mechanical brooms maneuver loudly past, a glance at the curb line often reveals debris, paper and grit that the sweeper failed to collect - much to the frustration of car-moving residents and, indeed, any of us who suffer through these malodorous days of summer. Almost 300 years after Benjamin Franklin first organized street sweeping in Philadelphia, cleaning our curbs remains an essential service and a daunting task. The city spends $16 million annually to sweep approximately 47,400 scheduled routes, which cover more than 6,000 miles of roads. Imagine sweeping from New York City to Los Angeles and back, every day. It's also a maintenance nightmare. Mechanical sweepers are expensive, prone to breakdowns and costly to repair. And the 450 mechanical brooms in our fleet must rotate out of their five-year service before we can move fully to state-of-the-art machines. In the search for more effective and efficient ways to keep our city tidy, we should first ask how frequently our neighborhoods really need to be swept. Consider Park Slope, Brooklyn, where sweeping has been suspended for the past three months so that thousands of signs could be replaced to reflect a shorter street cleaning window of 90 minutes, down from three hours (itself progress).
Despite the foul and filthy outcome predicted by many, Park Slope does not look or smell like an urban wasteland. The drains have not overflowed; Union Street and Seventh Avenue are not buried under garbage. Nonetheless, the alternate side parking rules are scheduled to go back into effect tomorrow. To offer some perspective, limited-access roadways countrywide are swept as little as once a year, and even within the five boroughs, some neighborhoods are not swept at all. Surely much of this city could be kept clean with a weekly or monthly visit from the street sweepers. A reduced sweeping schedule would have the bonus of lessening traffic, pollution and carbon emissions, all of which increase substantially when people move their cars to obey parking rules. Of course, if the Sanitation Department sweeps less, then it also needs to sweep more effectively. To deliver a quality sweep, mechanical cleaners need only a few basic things: well-maintained brooms, a trained driver who travels at no greater than 9 km per hour and, most important, water. Mechanical sweepers with water nozzles in good working order don't kick up storms of nasty stuff; instead they mist the pavement so dust stays on the ground just long enough to be swept up onto internal conveyor belts by the brooms. (New York's street sweepers are, in fact, all equipped with water nozzles, but their tanks often seem to be empty. Which is why we still get dust blown in our faces.) The good news: The next generation of mechanical sweeper already comprises a third of our sanitation fleet. This machine complies with widely recognized environmental standards and is far more effective at lifting contaminants from the roadway. Twelve or more strategically placed water nozzles loosen tiny contaminants and better contain the dust. In other states, this next-generation sweeper even has a mounted surveillance camera, which photographs the license plates of cars blocking its sweeping path. The owner receives a ticket in the mail a few days later. Some innovations, I suppose, we could do without. Still, I like to imagine the Sweeper of the Future that would truly tidy New York. Robotically operated from a remote command center. Running entirely on alternative fuels. Water nozzles strong enough to contain all dust contaminants. Able to vacuum up the largest pieces of debris. Perhaps even leaving behind a lavender scent to calm our nerves. Until then, we could follow the example of Hong Kong, where more than 2,000 manual sweepers keep streets and sidewalks immaculate. Their equipment? Just brooms and plastic handcarts. Closer to home, there are parts of Staten Island and Queens where no parking regulations exist for street cleaning. The law, however, obliges property owners to maintain the curb along their property line 18 inches into the street. The threat of a fine and a little elbow grease results in a job well done. The author is a former New York City Department of Transportation assistant commissioner for bridge and arterial maintenance he New York Times Syndicate (China Daily 07/17/2008 page9) |
