« PropShark: Brooklyn's Forc Scene Not As Awful as Queens' Garden of the Day: HGTV Does Greenwood Heights »
May 8, 2008
Clinton Hill, Fort Greene Street Cleaning Days Reduced
The Department of Sanitation has agreed to reduce street cleaning days in Commuinty District 2, most notably Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. Other parts of the district, like Brooklyn Heights, already have street cleaning only once a week on each side. "As a general rule, the commercial streets will continue to have street cleaning six days a week and most of the residential streets will go down to once a week [on each side]," said District Manager Robert Perris. "We have brought this subject up a few times a year for the past several years and when [the Department of] Sanitation changed their operational schedule for CD6, we reiterated our prior requests, and have now received reduced frequency and reduced duration of street cleaning." Councilwoman Letitia James told us about the change earlier this week. Some residents in her district previously had to move their cars four times a week. Sanitation spokeswoman Kathy Dawkins said the department agreed to the change because the district achieved a 90 percent cleanliness score for several years in a row. Perris said the affected streets will be announced at the June 11 monthly board meeting, and changes would happen this fall.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.brownstoner.com/mte/mt-tb.cgi/4814
Comments
Great idea...if people weren't such littergbugs.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 10:26 AM
Terrific - glad some people can move their cars less frequently. Unfortunately people on DeKalb Ave. aren't in that group because they have added "No Standing" signs to most of the blocks between Waverly up to Ft. Greene Park and have begun aggressively towing. This kind of prestidigitation is a crock - pretend to eliminate an alternate side and maybe the stupid neighborhood might not notice that traffic on DeKalb will increase exponentially in speed and volume while at the same time, there are actually LOTS fewer parking spots. Was there any community input about this "No Standing" situation?
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 10:27 AM
Yeah... I just picked up my car from the Navy Yard tow lot this morning. The woman there said the last 2-3 days the cars have been all from Dekalb. While I don't like this change anyway, a ticket seems like it would have been enough.... instead of towing the entire street. Especially after they basically changed it overnight without any notice.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 10:36 AM
10:26, I live on a Park Slope street that has street cleaning once/week/side. I also live 150' from southern Fifth Avenue. I have not noticed that my street is appreciatively messier than places where I have lived that had street cleaning twice as often.
10:27, the new parking regulations and pending bike lane on DeKalb Avenue is unrelated to the planned reduction in street cleaning in Community Board 2. Different (sanitation, transportation) agencies for one. Community Boards 2&3 commented on changes, but DOT was pretty clear that they were going ahead with its plan no matter what the community boards thought.
PEOPLE WHO GOT TOWED should call the DOT Borough Engineer’s Office at 718-439-2758. This office will request a copy of their summons and may be able to write a letter on the driver's behalf.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 10:36 AM
>>10:27, the new parking regulations and pending bike lane on DeKalb Avenue
!0:36, was there any community input on the bike lane placement? Why is it on the opposite side of the street from the bike lane further down DeKalb? Is this just some pie in the sky idea that bypassed any discussion by people who live here?
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 10:44 AM
I live in once a week cleaning area, and it's great, but it does make parking harder as people tend to park their cars for a week at a time (me too)
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 10:49 AM
The parking situation in Ft. Greene is out of control (let's not even get into the whole towing thing). When I moved to the 'hood six years ago spaces were easy to come by. About a year ago everything changed. Someone should do a study - is this a byproduct of gentrification?
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 10:50 AM
10:36 --- Thanks for the info. Hopefully I can get the tow cost back.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 10:51 AM
Here's the info about the DeKalb redesign:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/dekalbave_cbpresentation.pdf
10:44, the bike line will be on the same side as the existing one.
Posted by: zinka at May 8, 2008 11:05 AM
Nice Zinka. Was there any discussion with the residents of DeKalb Ave? This is a largely residential area (although the report hilights only the couple of completely commercial blocks). Can you explain how residents will unload groceries, for example? Or do bikes trump all existing uses?
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 11:19 AM
Hallelujah. Now all we need are resident parking stickers and this whole mess can be sorted out.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 12:05 PM
Resident parking stickers might help a little, but there are so MANY residents, how can you choose? Seriously. Do you count frontage on a specific block? How do you count Co-ops or resident tenants? How about an absentee landlord? Can you sell an unused resident parking sticker? Can we just get a tax credit for parking garages? These new initiatives are important for the future of the city, but we can't trample on existing residents in the meantime.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 12:20 PM
12:20 asks, "how can we choose" who would get a parking permit? A: If you register your car in a New York City neighborhood, you can get a permit for the area. Yes, that means both my landlord upstairs and I could get a permit, even though there is only room for one car in front of his building. No, you would not (legally) be able to sell a permit. However, with the death of congestion pricing, talk about residential parking permits is probably academic.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 1:00 PM
I am so HEATED right now. I just noticed the no parking sign on Dekalb Ave. Did anyone know this was coming? Was there a meeting about it? We barely had a place to park, before the sign was posted. Where are we supposed to park between 7am - 8:30am when the side street parking has a no standing from 8:30 -10am.
I moved into Brooklyn 7 years ago to get away from the madness of Manhattan. Now it seems everything is just spilling over... Grrrrr!!
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 1:29 PM
Is this the city"s sick way of making a profit off of the residents in Clinton Hill, since they will obviously be towing and giving out more summons as a result?
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 1:49 PM
Is this the city's sick way of making a profit off of the residents in Clinton Hill, since they will obviously be towing and giving out more summons as a result?
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 1:49 PM
Many, many of the parkers around DeKalb in FG are teachers from Brooklyn Tech, teachers from that elementary just beneath DeKalb (I think betw. Adelphi and Clermont), NYPD cadets who take classes at Brooklyn Tech, and people who work at Brooklyn Hospital. I lived on Washington Park for five years, and saw the parking patterns. On the weekends, it's from people visiting Fort Greene park.
Therefore, resident parking permits would help *a lot*.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 2:19 PM
The other issue with Fort Greene is that it's so close to the pound that if you leave your car for two seconds, it's toast. The tow guys just cruise back and forth and can haul in a huge number of cars in a relatively short time. I don't know if they work by quotas or whatever, but blink in that neighborhood and you're screwed.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 2:22 PM
The residents of my block are parking here, not workers down DeKalb for Tech. This is a misguided effort and the lack of community involvement is criminal. We should see if this is one of the "special projects" that the City Council is being investigated about. Where did the funding for this bogus report originate from? When was it presented? Who was notified first? Most of the time I see bicyclists riding outside of the established bike lanes anyhow. Who decided we need bike lanes so strict that there is no parking allowed?
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 5:19 PM
Let's see if I can help 5:19.
A. "...the lack of community involvement is criminal." Please cite the statue and I will help go after the 'criminals.'
B. "We should see if this is one of the 'special projects' that the City Council is being investigated about." This project was not funded by the City Council.
C. "Where did the funding for this bogus report originate from?" The Department of Transportation receives most of its funding from the Mayor. The report was prepared by professional transportation planners, which calls into question how "bogus" it is.
D. "When was it presented? Who was notified first?" It was presented to Community Boards 2&3 in March. I cannot speak to notification.
E. "Who decided we need bike lanes so strict that there is no parking allowed?" Well, for one, parking is only restricted during certain times of the day. That said, the Department of Transportation decided. You know, the city agency that makes decisions about, well, transportation, including bike lanes.
Hope that helps.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 5:41 PM
Since I sold my car, I have never gotten a parking ticket and the car I don't own has never been towed.
I highly recommend this strategy to others.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 5:57 PM
We lived between two places and the driver in our family lives in the other (non-NYC) location most of the time so our one car is registered there. The car is in Brookly an average of only a handful of days per month.
I wonder how this will impact us finding parking since people may be parked in for ages. But...as one poster wrote above, there patterns. I see a lot of coming and going during the day and evening so spots *do* open up.
I'm pissed all the time watching people parking in FG smack-dab in the middle of two spaces. They should tow those cars.
On our short block, sometimes there would be 2 and even 3 extra parking spaces if the parked cars were a little closer. Such inconsiderate parking the last couple of years.
I've noticed less hog-parking in PS, BH and on the UWS. Many nabes seem to have very closely parked cars, very tight wall of cars where you can't slip through when walking across the street mid-block.
Is it something with FG where people feel they are empowered to park so they take up two spaces? Or are all nabes bad these days?
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 6:34 PM
6:34, the issue is that the spaces aren't marked off. So I'm the first person to re-park along an empty side of the street. I eyeball it, and I pretty much know where to park so that all the cars will fit, but then I'm off, and then someone else is a bit off, and then that person moves later in the day, etc. etc. Well, I'm not explaining it well, but I've often parked and left my car, having parked quite close to a car, but come back the next day or so, and in the re-shuffling of spaces, given the range of car sizes, it looks like I'm taking up two spaces. We can't mark off spaces, though, because they'd have to accommodate SUVs and trucks, and that would net fewer spaces overall.
Bleah, I'm not explaining it well, but the point is that it's often neither callous nor intentional. Just looks that way after the fact.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 7:34 PM
just get rid of your fucking air polluting cars then you won't have to worry about getting towed and tickets. besides you drivers are shitty drivers. ride a bike it's NYC for christ sakes not Kansas!
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 9:21 PM
Isn't "fucking" one of those words that should be blocked? If people would clean up outside their houses (including the street) once a week street cleaning should be sufficient. Those street cleaning trucks can be useless anyway.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 11:12 PM
More pandering to motorists, which will backfire on them. Expect parking to be absolutely horrible because there is no reason to move cars except once/week. You will regret this.
Posted by: guest at May 8, 2008 11:27 PM
Less pandering to motorists because they have taken away literally four hundred spots by making the north side of DeKalb Ave. a no parking zone.
Posted by: guest at May 9, 2008 6:54 AM
Uh, 6:54, page 19 of the report mentioned by zinka at 11:05 yesterday states that 60 parking spots were eliminated completely and another 130 are lost during rush hours. Of course, guest 5:19 pronounced the report "bogus," so maybe your count of "literally four hundred spots" is correct.
Posted by: guest at May 9, 2008 9:07 AM
we should protest and stand/march along Dekalb. they can't tow our bodies...
Posted by: guest at May 9, 2008 10:44 AM
Post a comment
Please be patient while your comment is published. It may take a moment.