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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
How clean are your streets?
by Paul Cox, published on August 24, 2009 at 3:26 PM
Storyline: Parking in Sacramento
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We've all seen the street cleaning signs Downtown. No Parking on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, take your pick, from 8 a.m. to noon, usually. We've struggled trying to remember which side is which when we've come home late at night, and then tried to find a spot on the correct side. Is it all really necessary?
I've had occasion to be home on a number of street cleaning days for my street. The funny thing is, I haven't seen street cleaners--ever! I don't see the evidence that they've even been there. What I do see are tickets. Evidence that the meter maid has come by to ticket you for parking someplace. Someplace where they need to clean, but won't.
For transparency's sake, during a recent event, I received a ticket on my car. I normally would have no problem moving my car, however this morning it wouldn't start. I had even set my alarm for 7:30 a.m., just to be sure I would move it in time, even though I don't have to be at work until 9 a.m.
Upon realizing that it wouldn't start, I called a tow company and proceeded to leave a note, "Car won't start, can't move. Will be towed shortly." I came out to the sounds of the tow truck at 8:30 and what did I see? A nice, fresh, yellow ticket staring at me.
Having just been written at 8:11, I furtively glanced around for the officer who was well on his or her way, I'm sure. So, to add insult to the injury of a broken down car and a tow fee, I now had a nice $49 ticket to keep them company in my bank account.
But what was the ticket for? Parking in an area marked for no parking during certain hours. For street cleaning. Upon coming home at lunch I looked at the streets; no cleaning had been done. So I became curious just how often does this "cleaning" that I had impeded, and been ticketed for, take place.
The street signs tell me once a week on each side, Wednesdays and Thursdays. My mind, knowing the state of the economy, the state of city budgets, and the condition of my street, thought otherwise.
An e-mail back from the City of Sacramento seems to suggest that it happens on the fourth week of every month. However, a follow-up e-mail clarifies that no, it is once every two months.
So, then why am I and hundreds, if not thousands of others, getting tickets on days where the street doesn't need to be vacated? It seems rather disingenuous to ticket so many people under the guise of "street cleaning."
Why not just say "No parking: 'cause we feel like it," or something more City of Sacramento-like? I'm sure this fills the coffers of the city and ensures services are paid for. But wouldn't reassigning the meter maids that work those areas have the same effect? Cutting off a large portion of the Downtown area has got to save on labor costs somewhere.
For those that are interested, the weeks the City chooses to clean Downtown streets are the fourth weeks of January, March, May, July, September, and November. As always, check with the City to be sure that that is the case for your particular area, if you're unsure, at 311@cityofsacramento.org.
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I can't tell from your photos if your street is in the central city or a suburb--not that makes a difference really--except we in the central city have so many city street trees that drop their leaves, seed pods, blossoms, twigs, small branches, etc. year round that residents sweep them into piles for the "claw" to pick up, so that pick up is a form of cleaning--not sweeping, but it does clean the streets of those piles.
We repeatedly have the problem of people parking in front of the bins or over the leaf piles during the pick up time. This means the driver has to get out and move the bins which is not always possible, so the service is not provided in those cases. It also means that when the property owner or tenant gets home and finds his/her bins not picked up, he/she must then call the city and the drivers must make another trip on another day to pick up the garbage and recycling when many cars are parked there. When a car parks over a leaf pile, then it is another week before it is picked up IF another car dos not park over it during the following pick up day and time.
But the enforcement officer should have heeded your note--maybe raising the hood would have helped. Sorry that you got the ticket.
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The signs that show no parking due to street cleaning entail both the street sweeping and the street service of lawn and garden debris. The other program that has been affected, in the solid waste department, by budget constraints is the neighborhood clean up program which has been suspended.
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The street signs in Berkeley also tend to reflect the actual cleaning dates and I assure you I received just as many tickets there, in fact I'd say that when the times are intermittent, or at least less often, you tend to forget that street cleaning even occurs.
I would not mind if the money was taxed based on land ownership, but I would hate to see streets less clean because many landowners ignore the rules. Unlike letting your grass die this would have a real impact on a public resource, our streets.
Actually, it can take great deal of time depending on the time of year, the amount of leaves and litter in the gutter, the weather, the direction and velocity of the wind, the age and physical condition of the sweeper, whether or not your neighbor sweeps his/her gutter and the tools the sweeper has to sweep since sweeping is only one part of cleaning a gutter.
The prospect of sweeping, say, L Street or P Street is a little daunting...how many property owners want to dodge traffic to sweep the middle of the street? Many downtown streets are used for daytime parking by residents who have no off-street parking (most of them) or downtown employees who drive to work and park on the street. Sweeping underneath parked cars is a huge pain in the neck!
One other thing to consider: more than 90% of the residential units in the central city are multiple units, only about 10% are single-family homes. This means that most people in the central city, by a wide margin, live in apartments--building maintenance is typically done by a management company, whose maintenance ranges from meticulous to indifferent.