All Rego Park resident Linda Pakula wants is for those in her community to show some respect.
Throughout Rego Park, some bioswales that normally house appealing greenery and filter rainwater instead feature garbage, oily water or broken, dead trees.
Near the intersection of 63rd Road and 97th Street, a block from Queens Boulevard, two unsightly plots feature all that and more.
Two orange cones wrapped in old caution tape, ripped paper signs and garbage surround a dead tree in a pit on the west side of the intersection.
Just steps away, on the east side of the intersection, a tarp, sandbags and a cone cover the spot where a tree would normally sit, while numerous bags of trash float in a pool of dirty water.
Instead of blaming the Parks Department for allowing the bioswales to decay, Pakula blames her fellow Rego Park residents.
“It’s the people in the community throwing their garbage in there,” Pakula said. “I would never say it’s a city issue, it’s a people issue.”
17 comments:
If people all over the city were throwing their trash in bioswales the Parks department, with its minuscule budget would never be able to keep them all clean, it's ridiculous to expect otherwise. If you want your neighborhood to not look like shit then take care of it. Don't ask the city to do it for you.
True it is people in the community who are the culprits, like many in Jamaica, BUT at the same time, when quality of life issues are no enforced and elected leaders do so very little except show up for a photo-op, then yes, it becomes a city issue. There are many cites across the country, that do not look like NYC and all it's garbage and litter and other quality of life issue.
If a companies employees are fucking off and not doing their jobs for years, the problem is with upper management and the CEO for allowing such behavior.
The bioswales are another example as to how we twist resources, waste our taxes, and get the short end of the stick because we let our electeds turn our city, our neighborhoods over to two bit developers.
We do not need this feature if we put a cap on development.
They want to develop? Fine, let them worry about the infrastructure and carbon foot print.
Too much for them to handle? You know what Mr. Politician, we can propose something that even your simple brain can handle: F*ck them or F*ck you.
If you want your neighborhood to not look like shit then take care of it. Don't ask the city to do it for you.
HELL NO! MY ONLY JOB IS TO BE AN ENGAGED OUTSPOKEN CITIZEN WHO PAYS TAXES AND FOLLOWS LAWS.
AND IF SOMEONE IS NOT DOING THEIR JOB IN KEEPING THIS CLEAN, THEN CUE THE OUTSPOKEN ENGAGED CITIZEN.
I agree. But if you are going to wait for the city to get off their ass and clean you're neighborhood, you're going to live in a filthy cesspool. Clean and bitch at the same time,
I actually have done work with bioswales in the past. Bioswales are designed with the goal to filter storm water and slow it down so that it takes longer to reach the sewer treatment plants. Problem is it also slows down normal everyday city waste water runoff (from people washing their cars or whatever dirty water people throw onto the street curb) leaving unsightly pools of nastiness in the tree pits. Overtime people see this and associate the bioswales with garbage and throw their trash into it. The trash collects there and more people associate it with a place to throw garbage and that is when you get these nasty looking garbage pits. Normally when people throw their trash into the street, the people who sweep their property get rid of it. However when its in a bioswale people dont clean it because they think its the city government's problem. If you can somehow force property owners near the bioswale to clean it up you will minimize this trash problem. That part is going to receive public backlash.
I agree. But if you are going to wait for the city to get off their ass and clean you're neighborhood, you're going to live in a filthy cesspool. Clean and bitch at the same time,
````
I agree with the other poster, for the amount of effort you take in time and money its a hell of a lot more effective to go after your community board and councilman.
Doing the work yourself commits you to a never ending task that you are already paying taxes to have someone else do.
Besides, why risk injury or a law suit or a ticket?
Its so much easier to stencil:
"This lot is dirty because my councilman is not doing their job.'
Believe me problems will be solved in a flash.
I never heard the word "bioswale' in my life. Do people say this typically?
Failure to yield: Why do drivers making turns think they have priority over pedestrians crossing the street? In most cases, in about five seconds they will be stopping for another cross-street red light.
It is because if they hit the gas pedal really fast, they reach the crosswalk before some pedestrians do?
My neighbors came from countries where garbage everywhere is never picked up and see this as normal.
It's part of diversity and tolerance to see their attitude about dropping garbage everywhere as cultural and not malice on their part. As they see it, it is part of American freedom to act without concern about consequence.
"Normally when people throw their trash into the street, the people who sweep their property get rid of it."
That makes no sense. So if people are like savages and throw garbage on your property then it's your job to be their maids? I've seen people just eat a fruit and throw it on the ground. His wife gets in the car and throws a tissue paper on the ground and I asked her that she shouldn't do that and she just looked at me and drove off.
"My neighbors came from countries where garbage everywhere is never picked up and see this as normal.
It's part of diversity and tolerance to see their attitude about dropping garbage everywhere as cultural and not malice on their part. As they see it, it is part of American freedom to act without concern about consequence."
Nonsense. I see people wearing nice clothes, apple iPhone, drive Lexus SUV's and they still don't clean up after their dogs and throw garbage on the ground, or even have neighbhors throw garbage into my garbage cans.
Alternative to bioswales is drywells between or near a tree pit. Drywells can be located under the street, away from basements. Both drywells and bioswales can add dampness to basements if too close to buildings. Also, what is being done to contol mosquitos? How about diverting alot of that storm water into some of the larger parks like Forest Park, Ally Pond, Juniper, etc. Making property owners where the city chooses to place bioswales responsible for its' maintenance is just another venue for issueing unjust violations. That may also lead to property owners sabotaging, blocking off, the bioswales.
Linda Pakula is right. If people did not litter the bioswales, and everyplace else would be clean.
Very true...."It's a people issue." For many other problems in the world this can be said.
Dry wells dont look as nice as the current bioswales we have.
To Anonymous #6: I just heard of bioswales, myself. Capital New York had an article about them in March 2012. Unfortunately, like so many new ideas in public works, no word on who will maintain them.
Every single bioswale that was recently installed in Rego Park is either filled with litter, dead plants , or dead trees.
The people at DEP are complete idiots!
Post a Comment