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City will restore alternate-side parking to two days this summer
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Apr 18, 2022
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Michael Anton for DSNY
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Apr 18, 2022
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New York City drivers will once again be required to move their cars for street sweeping twice a week, ending a nearly two-year rollback in cleaning that city officials say has left blocks awash in litter.
Newly-appointed Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced on Monday that the alternate-side parking rules would be restored to their twice-weekly schedule, beginning on July 5th.
The policy will undo a pandemic-era measure put in place by former Mayor Bill de Blasio that canceled half of the city’s street cleanings, allowing drivers to move their cars only once a week.
Tisch said during a Monday press conference that the reduction in sweeps had more than doubled the amount of trash on the city streets. In many cases, she said, drivers were ignoring alternate side regulations altogether, blocking the mechanical brooms from accessing the curb for weeks on end.
“The pandemic policy change had a disproportionate effect on the amount of cleaning the agency could do,” she said. “I know it's a pain to move the car, but let's be real, we need people to do it to allow our brooms to give the city the good scrubbing it needs.”
As part of the $11 million investment in cleaning announced on Monday, the city will also begin expanding a program to roll out year-round cleaning of protected bike lanes.
The Sanitation Department currently has 10 of the Micromobility Operations Machines (MOMs), which were previously used to clear snow from bike lanes and can be fitted with brooms for regular sweeping. The agency plans to purchase 45 of them by next winter, according to a DSNY spokesperson.
Narrow plows are used to clear bike lanes and sidewalks across the country, and the city’s slow pace in purchasing similar vehicles has long been a source of frustration for cyclists.
The announcement came hours after Tisch, a former de Blasio official whose family owns the Loews Corporation, was named as the city’s sanitation chief.
She also said the administration wanted to “make compost collection both effective and cost effective,” though she did not give details about how that would work. As part of his first budget, Mayor Eric Adams halted a planned expansion of the city’s curbside composting program, earning sharp criticism from environmental advocates who said the collections are key to the city’s climate goals.
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alternate side parking
trash
sanitation
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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