The good news is that life will become easier for residents of Community Board 2 who own cars.
The bad news is the cost of this increased luxury might be dirtier streets.
That after the Department of Sanitation (DOS) presented a plan at last week’s Community Board 2 meeting to reduce street cleaning in many of the area’s residential neighborhoods.
Thus alternate side of the street parking – in which vehicle owners must move their cars twice a week from one side of the street to the other – will now be reduced to once a week.
The reduction in alternate side of the street parking for street cleaning follows a similar initiative in the Park Slope section of Community Board 6 instituted last month.
At press time, DOS spokesperson Kathy Dawkins refused to give details of which residential neighborhoods would be affected, but sources confirmed that Fort Greene and Clinton Hill are two of the neighborhoods affected.
Interestingly, both CB 2 and CB 6 were strong backers of the Bloomberg administration’s failed congestion pricing plan, and are now the only Brooklyn community boards that have reduced street cleaning.
Dawkins denied the initiatives came down as an order from the Bloomberg Administration as a payback for their support of the congestion pricing initiatives.
The reductions were based on the mayor’s Office of Operations, which does a monthly scorecard report on street cleanliness and littering in each community board citywide, said Dawkins.
“It’s done because it’s right thing to do based on the merits. That being the districts maintained a scorecard of street cleanliness level of 90 percent or better for the past three fiscal years,” she added.
CB 2 District Manager Rob Perris said the community board has been asking for years to have the frequency of street cleaning reduced in residential neighborhoods.
“After the DOS changed the regulations in CB 6, we asked them to take another look in community district 2,” said Perris.
However, the move was met with mixed reaction from community members.
“If we’re faced with a choice between parking spaces and dirty streets that’s an impossible choice,” said Judy Stanton, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association.
“Dirty streets produce higher crime rates and the degrading of the neighborhood. I would not want to see dirtier streets,” she added.
Stanton, who does not drive a car, also had concerns of what will happen in winter, and questioned how snow plows will be able to plow the sides of the street if cars do not have to move.
But longtime Fort Greene community activist Ruth Goldstein said she favors the move.
“People spend a lot of time driving around and around and that adds to pollution,” Goldstein said.
“My only reservation is once you get four times a week street cleaning reduced to two it’s hard to get it back. If streets do get dirtier we probably won’t be able to get it back,” she added.
