Parking rules Sanitation review

By N. Clark Judd

Community Board 8 members are idling at a stop light in their drive to reduce the number of alternate-side parking days in the Riverdale-Kingsbridge area.

The board passed a resolution seeking the change - which would trim streetsweeping in Van Cortlandt Village and in parts of Kingsbridge and Riverdale from four days a week to twice weekly - months ago. The proposal is now in the hands of the city Department of Sanitation. With the Sanitation Department reviewing the idea, board members are playing a waiting game.

"We have received the proposal and it is currently under review," said Sanitation spokeswoman Kathy Dawkins. The department has not yet made any findings concerning the plan, she said.

In March, the board adopted the recommendation of a special committee on alternate- side parking to ask that street sweeping days be reduced from four times a week to twice weekly around Amalgamated Houses in Van Cortlandt Village; in Kingsbridge, from West 231st to West 238th streets, including Irwin, Tibbett and Corlear avenues; in South Riverdale, from West 227th to West 235th streets, including Fairfield, Arlington and Netherland avenues; and Central Riverdale, from West 237th to West 246th streets, including Blackstone and Independence avenues and the northern part of Hudson Manor Terrace.

After making site visits and reviewing the Sanitation Department's cleanliness ratings for those areas, the committee suggested that they were clean enough to be swept fewer times a week - meaning fewer early-morning trips to the opposite side of the street for Riverdale and Kingsbridge residents who park there.

Board 8 Chairman Tony Cassino said that some board members were supposed to meet with DSNY officials about the plan last month, but a scheduling conflict scrapped the meeting. Sanitation officials recently told Mr. Cassino that they want to study the idea on their own before a meeting.

Board 8's initiative follows a trail blazed by Brooklyn's Community Board 6. In 2000, a pilot program was started in Park Slope that cut the number of street sweepings in half. Initially, Craig Hammerman, the board's district manager, said, the street cleanliness scores the Sanitation Department listed for his community board decreased.

However, he said, "What we found was, over time, the long-term trend is that that area is indistinguishably as clean as the rest of the district."

Mr. Hammerman anticipates the Sanitation Department will soon grant two days of street sweeping for the entire board, and reduce the alternate-side parking regulation's duration to 90 minutes.

Even though a street is swept half as often, he has found, "it's not twice as dirty."

This is part of the May 8, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you. Click here.