Friday, May 5, 2023

Department Of Sanitation Alternatives plans to usurp parking spaces for trash bins

 

New York Times 

New York City, where sidewalks have long been overrun by foul-smelling heaps of garbage bags that force passers-by to yield to oncoming rat traffic, is about to try a not-so-novel idea to solve the problem.

The concept, known as trash containerization, seems simple enough: Get trash off the streets and into containers. The strategy has been used successfully in cities across Europe and Asia, like Barcelona and Singapore.

But in New York, nothing is that simple.

In a highly anticipated new report being released on Wednesday, city sanitation officials estimate that it would be possible to move trash to containers on 89 percent of the city’s residential streets. To do so, however, will require removing 150,000 parking spots, and up to 25 percent of parking spots on some blocks.

The report does not address the cost of implementing trash containerization citywide, but it could easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade. City officials must buy new specialized trash trucks and stationary containers, while also increasing the frequency of trash collection in large swaths of the city.

The new approach could revolutionize trash collection in New York. Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat in his second year in office, has said attacking trash is one of his priorities, framing it as part of broader efforts to improve quality of life in the city after the disruption of the pandemic. He has hired a new rat czar with a “killer instinct” for slaying rats.

But embracing trash containers will require trade-offs, including sacrificing more parking spots than were taken for outdoor dining or the city’s popular bike-share program — both of which stirred pockets of outrage.

The city’s sanitation commissioner, Jessica Tisch, said in a statement that sanitation officials were working hard to remove trash more quickly, including setting new hours for placing trash on the curb, and that trash containerization was the critical next step.

“Mayor Adams wants a permanent solution, something like what other global cities have that takes our sidewalks back from the black bags — and from the rats,” she said. “The detailed street-level analysis in this report shows, for the first time, that containerization — in the form of individual bins and shared containers — actually is viable across the vast majority of the five boroughs.”

The new trash program would look different across the city depending on the block. For a single-family home in eastern Queens, residents could be required to use individual bins for trash, recycling and compost. On a block lined with six-story apartment buildings in northern Manhattan, the street could get a dozen large aboveground containers — artist renderings suggest a cross between a dumpster and a giant laundry bin — placed in parking spaces.

By this fall, the city will start a major new pilot program in West Harlem, in Community Board 9, that will install large trash containers in parking spots on up to 10 residential blocks and at more than a dozen schools. On residential blocks, trash collection will double from three times a week to six.

At a time when Mr. Adams is cutting spending across city agencies, he included more than $5.6 million for the pilot program in his latest executive budget proposal — a sign of his commitment to the idea, city officials said.

Shaun Abreu, a City Council member who represents West Harlem, said in a statement that he was excited for the neighborhood to be a part of the pilot program and that it would “make a real difference and teach the city a lot about the path forward.”

The city’s 95-page new report examined trash containerization in cities across the world that have been experimenting with the idea for 15 years and analyzed the program’s feasibility in each neighborhood. In the United States, San Francisco and Chicago remove garbage bags from the streets, mostly using individual bins and Chicago’s famed alleyways which New York City does not have.

New York City is a bit of a global pariah when it comes to trash. On garbage days in Manhattan, towers of fetid trash bags line the streets, with food and liquids oozing on to sidewalks. Sanitation workers carry out the Sisyphean task of carting away 24 million pounds of trash and recycling every day.

Other cities have successfully reined in their garbage. Amsterdam uses underground storage and electric boats. Singapore and other cities use a pneumatic pressure chute system. Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Paris rely on shared and individual trash containers, providing the most useful examples of what is possible in New York, city officials said.

The report was written by Sanitation Department staffers and informed by a study by McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm, that was initially reported to cost $4 million. The city ultimately paid McKinsey & Company $1.6 million for the study, city officials said.

Ms. Tisch said in an interview that it was too early to provide an estimate for the total cost. But she acknowledged that the cost was “not inexpensive.”

“It is one of the most massive, complicated infrastructure programs this city can undertake over the next decade because it affects every borough, every neighborhood, every block and frankly every resident in the City of New York,” she said.

Parking is one of the third rails of New York City politics, and the plan could face pushback in some communities. The city has roughly 3 million free street parking spots. Trash containerization would remove up to 10 percent of available parking spots on residential streets citywide, compared to less than 1 percent of parking spots removed for outdoor dining. Citi Bike, the city’s bike-share program, has taken about half of a percent of curb space in its service area for bike docks, according to the company.

On 11 percent of the city’s most densely populated residential streets in places like Lower Manhattan, the city found that it was not feasible to install containers because there was not enough street space for the trash produced in those areas.

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

The War on Cars continues...

Anonymous said...

LIBERAL PLAYBOOK #AGENDA2030

Anonymous said...

Sludge & stench for everyone !

Anonymous said...

Reason #136 to move out of this hell hole City run by Marxist !

Anonymous said...

I'm Happy for NYC !

FreedomFries Fred said...

So it has been used in other first world countries? USA has lost most of its engineering ability. We are still stuck using trucks and technology from the 1950s, an imperial measuring system from the Middle Ages, a road traffic system from the Robert Moses era, a train system from god knows when. We suddenly expect that we can do what first world European and Asian cities can do?
We may be able to do this in 20 years when we stop letting corporations outsource all of their thinking abilities abroad. When we stop corporations from giving all of their generated wealth to CEO's instead of re-investing it in America and American employees. When our brightest college grads can get decent paying engineering jobs in the USA instead of getting higher paying jobs manipulating the stock market or working for useless corporations like Twitter, Facebook etc. that provide nothing of use to anybody.

But all of that is Socialism and that must be avoided at all cost according to the corporate guru's and right wing mouth-pieces.

When America had socialism back in the 1950s and 1960s, it was ahead of it's time. Now it's in the dark ages.


Anonymous said...

Rats have very flexible bodies, do they really think they can't get into these containers? The real answer is underground storage and moving trash frequently during the dy using subway lines. The worst trash pile ups and rat problems are near subway stations (including downtown Flushing) so the most rational thing is to use the subways to move trash. More genrlly, the way to fix the subway system is to standardise the tracks and franchise out the routes (like Queens Surface), so this would be a start in that direction, too. These dudes want to inflict us with magacities without doing the work for the infrastructure, which they then blame on climate instead of their schoolmarmish fantasy incompetence which only gives grades for politically correct effort and banished standardised testing.

https://nypost.com/2022/09/27/tiktok-of-switzerlands-underground-garbage-system-goes-viral/

https://www.core77.com/posts/102208/Amsterdams-Smart-System-of-Underground-Garbage-Bins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Vsmb2YIuU

Anonymous said...

Worth noting that despite how crowded Times Square is, they still found room for those containers on the street instead of eating up scarce parking space.

NPC_translator said...

It's like they're going to roll out a million blackboards for graffiti artists to paint on.

Anonymous said...

Was George Soros hiding inside that planter?

Anonymous said...

Stinky Milk New York

Anonymous said...

​Dad Bods Unite said...
The war on cars is real. UN #AGENDA2030
Congestion pricing is just one way leftist cities are actively engaged in reducing the number of cars and the amount of driving. Controlled Dem politicians promote Open Streets/Bike lanes/Planters/Food Shacks and now garbage cans. See the pattern ?

Anonymous said...


@"The War on Cars continues..."

Cry me a river, snowflake.

Anonymous said...

All this sanitation stuff is for communists. Here in the great red state of Georgia, we just burn our garbage out back.

Anonymous said...

@NPC_doofus
That has to be your best contribution so far.

Anonymous said...

@"I'm Happy for NYC !"

As you should be. I'm very happy living here too.

georgetheatheist said...

Why not just up the mil size of the black plastic garbage bag? From 4mil to 6mil.

Anonymous said...

An insane and punishing idea.

Anonymous said...

The people of New York have got to be the dumbest people on earth.

Anonymous said...

What do you expect in a Marxist controlled City ?

Anonymous said...

Will we be allowed to gather our own bugs or will be have to buy the bugs from Bill Gates ?

Anonymous said...

@“ Reason #136 to move out of this hell hole City run by Marxist !”

Actually the current mayor is a TrumpTurd hybrid.

LowIQAnon said...

@“ See the pattern ?”
Yes, it’s definitely Karl Marx at work. That guy hated pollution so much, he must have been a communist!

Anonymous said...

If the filthy taco and halal food trucks can sit on the sidewalks, why can't they put these containers on the sidewalks?
When did it start being legal for those disgusting food trucks to be on sidewalks? Do you see how much garbage they generate and how much oil/sludge they are creating? I would never in a million years eat from one. They do not have running water for sanitation of cooking utensils or hands.

How about start really fining households and business's that put their garbage in City garbage cans?

Anonymous said...

Absolutely ridiculous plan, the blame for this stupid idea goes to the Sheeple of NYC !

Anonymous said...

You are right about socialism in America dating to the communist Cromwellian Puritan Pilgrims of Massachussets (Harvard, Yale) as opposed to the Monarchists of Virginia. Read: Conservative History of American Left by Daniel J. Flynn; both volumes of Transformation of American Law by Morton J. Horwitz; and all four volumes of Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer.

Ned said...

Yea more communist euro-shit, war on private car ownership and everything else.
We never needed this before, why now?
All that's needed is more garbage pickup, free 2 mil thick 55 gal trash bags and less 3rd world slobbery.
How about giving landlords some tools and power to evict pigs?
How about some enforcement, fines and summons issuing to pedestrians?

Do the jackasses at city hall and stupid clueless appointed "Rat Czar" really think 3rd world shit will use these things?
Hell they toss garbage on ground, out the window to sidewalks, rear yards. To dam lazy to make it to the front gate trash can, why would they walk to the corner?
Hell most this 3rd world shit coming in cant read in any language.
Rats will be rats, its all the stupid slob low class people who don't give a shit that are causing the rat problem. Blacks aint off the hook also, the majority of them will
deliberately toss garbage in white neighborhoods, especially on nice expensive cars, pee in your doorway with a 1/2 eaten takeout tin of food in the other hand.

-Ned

Anonymous said...

@Ned
I thought you were down in Texas, doing what rightwing nuts with guns do best?

Anonymous said...

Is this part of the New Green Deal ?

Anonymous said...

It's NYC. I expect nothing less...

LowIQAnon said...

@Ned
Ned is right again. More fines for pedestrians. They’re the cause of most deaths on the road, and they’re probably commies.
Let’s have a war on pedestrians???

Anonymous said...

Al Gore believes farming mammalian flesh is the prime cause of global warming via flatulence, so he wants us to get all out protein by eating insects.

Anonymous said...

This originally from Amsterdam's red light and party districts as "dual use vending machines" for getting or disposal of of needles, used condoms, crack pipes, viles, opioid reversal injectors like Narcan, diapers, rolling paper, pipe screens, foils of alcohol wipes, gauze.
WTF, Are they all doctors?

Instead of incurring the $$$ cost of cleaning their blatent on the street crime, nuttery, prostitution, sex & drugs up they made it legal and call it progress. And to add, anybody who doesn't approve is called out as antisocial, anti-community, racist etc.
Sound familiar?
Why must New York copy every bullshit communist/socialist idiocy from every shit-hole in Europe?

Kitara said...

@“ If the filthy taco and halal food trucks can sit on the sidewalks, why can't they put these containers on the sidewalks?
When did it start being legal ….”

I presume you are from another planet. Welcome to planet earth. As most New Yorkers and tourists know, New York always had hot dog and other food carts. probably since the first illegal European migrants came here a few hundred years ago.

Enjoy your trip back to the great red planet of Mars or wherever you came from.

Anonymous said...

A trash bin for a car? Seems like a fair exchange.

Anonymous said...

New Yorkers want this. They vote 85% DeM0rAt year after year...

Anonymous said...

@Ned,
thanks for your rant. Now, Could you please stop supporting an organization that promotes murdering school kids in their classrooms ?

Anonymous said...

Kitarass said... Nothing !

Anonymous said...

The 15% did not vote for this nor want it either….but we are stuck with what the 85% voted for. How many of the 85% are really happy and satisfied with it all???

Ned said...

Quote to Ned, Could you please stop supporting an organization that promotes murdering school kids in their classrooms?"

Nonsense, misuse and twisting of narrative like the progressives do.
First off the guns including the automatics and almost every model used to commit these murders are no different then they were 60 ears ago when we didn't have these shootings in schools and such.
What has changed?
Answer: The inability of this shitty government to recognize and deal with mental illness.
Death by gun stabbed or pushed under a subway train, its all the same shit.
The hardware (machinery) is not whats doing the killing.
HIPA confidentiality (changes in rights) need to go back to the old system.
I say lousy parents who own guns, school guidance councilors, social services who don't notify the police and nutters need to be put away, the fuck with their civil rights in such cases.
Nut strangled on the subway and all his family is in front of TV cameras with Rev.Al Sharpton? Hey, where were his parents Rev.Al, BLM, Mayor, DA, dept human services and supporters of "this nice innocent boy" with 42 arrests for menacing, violence, personal injury felony that went on for 10 years in the street & subway before he was dead?

Problem is these bleeding heart liberals and progressives don't want nuts & criminals put away, nor have $$ funding or law statutes to so if they wanted.
You voted democrat, you voted for special civil rights and protections for lunatics, illegals and criminals, massive redistribution of police funding.
Hey, don't blame me, the police, Smith & Wesson, Glock, Mossberg, or the NRA. Your shit voting habits have gotten you exactly what you asked for. Now you gotta suck on it, get beaten like a pinata every way possible and suffer!

How about we ban trains, cars, sizzors, knives? Such will do NOTHING against a nutter intent to kill. (Cavemen used sticks and rocks to kill 500 million years ago)

Do you know armed citizens on the scene thwart more murders, mass shootings, robbery's home invasions then the police 10 to 1?
A: You likely never will and that's because the scum liberal media only reports on successful kills, these bastards only feed on drama, sensationalism and anything to advance the progressive agenda. ....Add or keep you hand off the remote control too.
"Oh hes such a nice boy when he takes his medication"
Oh bullshit, AWOL from therapy and meds lock his (or her) ass up END OF STORY !!

Oh hell, explaining this to the WOke, most school teachers, all democrats is like playing chess in the park with a parrot. The bird knocks all the pieces off the table, calls you a racist and says he won.

-Ned
www.nra.org

Anonymous said...

Good points Ned !

Anonymous said...

Ned is right !
"All the evidence in the world cannot convince an idiot". Mark Twain

Anonymous said...

In the ghetto they make these huge daggers out of sharpened wood and cover them with duct tape. And they get through the metal detectors.

Anonymous said...

Nicotine treats schizophrenia and parkinsons; Cold shower treats anxiety & depression Blood thinners and proton pump inhibitors cause alzheimers. Serotonergics cause Crohn's and (Elvis) megacolon. Alcohol causes Parkinsons. Cocaine, psychadelics, cannabis, amphetamines and felinofecal toxoplasmosis trigger schizophrenia. Lead paint causes hyperactivity. Older parents cause autism.

Anonymous said...

This is your country on “Progressivism” coming to a neighborhood near you quicker than you can say: “Hope & Change you can believe in”

Anonymous said...

What did we do before plastic bags? We used sontainers with tops,it could be metal or plastic.I think some cities have outlawed plastic bags.

panzer65 said...

I see people throwing trash around all the time, this is not going to stop that!

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