Street sweeping parking restrictions to be extended until 2:00 PM

[unferth.livejournal.com]

A year after Somerville instituted citywide parking permit restrictions, more sweeping changes have arrived. Street cleaning hours are being extended from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
[...]
Since the city needs time to change signs and educate the public, no street cleaning tickets will be issued from noon to 2 p.m. until April, Meehan said.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2010/11/street_cleaning_adds_to_somerv.html

I don't know how many people have been moving their cars to the restricted side of the road after noon but before 2:00 - certainly not me - but maybe someone will be affected by this.

Comments

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

Does that really mean, "replacing every parking sign in the entire city?"

Wow, that must be a nice contract to get.

[unferth.livejournal.com]

Didn't they just use stickers when they extended the end date of street sweeping from November 30 to December 31? That's still a lot of stickers, but I don't expect them to literally take down and replace all the signs.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

As long as they keep sweeping every side of the street at least twice a month.. because that is really important.

[ron_newman]

Cambridge gets by with just once a month, which seems quite sufficient to me (and much less inconvenient for residents who have cars)

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I am aware of that. I just don't have a "this is sarcasm" userpic.

(Medford St is actually *every week* on each side. It's absurd.)

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

yeah those are not ... sweeping changes... get it? sweeping?

*GDR*

[unferth.livejournal.com]

At least they're not towing cars for it anymore.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I am often out with my baby and arrive home around noon. On days like this with waterfalls from the sky getting the often sleeping baby into the house still asleep may get a lot harder.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Actually I prefers Somerville's method.

First of all, Cambridge tows. Everywhere. Somerville does not.

Secondly, Cambridge's streets get really trash strewn by the time that month rolls around. Hence why it's necessary to tow.

[enhf94.livejournal.com]

It's been a couple of years since I asked, but city employees gave me a convincing argument that street sweeping saves money over letting leaves and (especially) trash go into the storm drains. Someone in city government (Jackie?) might know.

I don't know what I'm talking about (obviously), but I recall recategorizing street-sweeping from "ridiculous" to "good idea" upon hearing Certified Smart People talk.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with sweeping. Cambridge gets by doing it once a month. But here we do it twice a month on most streets and every week on some. So which is it exactly that costs less money than dealing with the storm drains?

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Which just means that the streets can't actually get cleaned. I'd rather have it once a month til 2pm with the towing, personally.

[pakoo.livejournal.com]

They have to keep up this street sweeping schedule. How else would they get all that revenue for the town? Multiply the amount of $50.00 tickets and subtract the wage for the sweeper. I'm surprised they don't sweep every night.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

yeah, seriously. i only deal with cambridge and if we go out the night before street cleaning it's *awful* but worth it in the end and actually, i haven't gotten a ticket if i've had to park on the not-cleaning side illegally (no permit), so.

i honestly don't understand towns that don't tow for this.

[ron_newman]

Changing the end time to 2 pm is OK, but they should then change the start time to 9 or 10 am.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

On my street it totally is necessary to sweep at least that often. We have really poor street drainage and especially in the summer and/or after a rain it often smells like dead animals in front of our house. Last time they were doing the opposite of the street, I went out and asked the street-sweeper-driver to please come back and do our side of the street anyway, just because it smelled so bad. (He did, and it helped).

[turil.livejournal.com]

I still say hiring retirees, kids, and teens to sweep with actual brooms would really benefit the whole city quite a bit...

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I think they want to do it because they made some change (fewer vehicles, maybe?) so that it takes more than 4 hours to hit all the streets on the schedule for a given day.

[jamiesquared.livejournal.com]

Right now on street sweeping days I think you cant park between 8:30-12:00 on my street. They never get to my street before 10 but I think they cant predict exact times so they need to do a range. Maybe they are going to have less people on staff for cleaning so they need that time extension?

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Of course! We'll need something to do with all those child laborers...

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

The streets I use in Cambridge are perfectly clean even when it's been almost a month. I've compared the two sides of these streets when one side has just been cleaned and the other hasn't, and I can't tell the difference.

Right now there's a lot of leaves in the gutter. But they're not a problem, and there are leaves in plenty of other places as well.

The biggest sanitary problem is leaky garbage trucks which drip trash juice all over the city.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Obviously, my plan also involves a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) which supports the basic health needs (food, shelter, water, heating, education, etc.) for everyone, so that no on feels forced into doing work that they don't actually enjoy. That way only people who want the exercise and/or camaraderie or beauty or challenge or whatever of sweeping the streets will sweep the streets.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

At this point in my unemployed existence, I'd actually take that job. SIGH

[maelithil.livejournal.com]

What happens if not enough kids people see the beauty or challenge or whatever of sweeping the streets to actually keep the streets clean? Do we... hire a company that specializes in street sweeping?

[turil.livejournal.com]

If no one wants to do the job, then it doesn't get done. Even the people working for the company are still going to have to want to do it for it to get done. I can see that some people are more lazy and want the machine to do all the work while they get paid, and sometimes that's what we end up needing to do, if there are no other options.

But, as is always the case with things that you want doing but can't find someone else to do, you can always do it yourself!

[steeks99.livejournal.com]

As a Highland Ave resident, I would much prefer 8:00am-2:00pm sweeping as opposed to 12:00-4:00am or whatever it is.

[lheena.livejournal.com]

Bit late to put in my $0.02, but Brighton does it once a week on some streets. Got a ticket this morning because I was so tired last night I forgot it was Monday night. :(

While I get the storm drain thing, I really think the $40.00 price tag is more the incentive doing it more often. Do it once a week, get that many more tickets - probably only takes 10 cars to pay for the four hours of street sweeping, the rest is profit.