Car owners in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights will soon be treated to a carrot that officials hope will get them to move their car for street sweepers: one less day of alternate-side parking.
The change is part of a pilot program being led by Councilmember Crystal Hudson, who represents the neighborhood. She and the Department of Sanitation say too many drivers aren’t moving their cars on alternate-side days. Now, they’re making drivers an offer: Cooperate with alternate-side just once a week, and the change might become permanent.
“There's a big issue currently across the city where New Yorkers are generally not complying with alternate-side parking requirements and so street cleaning has become difficult,” Hudson said.
“If people still continue to not move their cars, and sanitation can't effectively clean the streets, then we would probably not consider it a successful pilot,” she added.
Alternate-side parking is a regular source of misery for many New York City car owners. Streets are cleaned once or twice a week at a specific time, forcing drivers to move their cars or risk a ticket.
The entire city got a taste of life with one less day of alternate-side parking rules during the pandemic. In 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the suspension of one day a week to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19. He called it one of the biggest changes to alternate-side rules since they were introduced in the 1950s.
A little over two years later, Mayor Eric Adams reinstated twice-weekly alternate-side parking, seeking to address a major rat problem linked to litter.
Alternate-side will be reduced to just one day under the pilot in Prospect Heights.
The blocks for the pilot in Prospect Heights stretch from Pacific Street to Lincoln Place and Vanderbilt Avenue to Washington or Grand avenues.
Sanitation department spokesperson Vincent Gragnani called Hudson’s plan a “first-of-its-kind pilot.” He said that sanitation officials deemed the blocks clean enough to give it a go.
The agency reports that each week, 500,000 car owners don’t move their cars during alternate-side parking, preventing street sweepers from cleaning more than 3,000 miles of streets.
“Sometimes when there's alternate side, it makes it very hard to park,” said driver George Marrero, 63. He lives in Williamsburg and drives to his special education job at a school in the pilot zone. “I think that's a great thing that they're doing, for sure.”
But Victor Amos, 30, who was double parked and eating lunch in his car, told Gothamist twice-weekly alternate-side parking makes sense to him.
“I don't mind the alternate-side parking because it's ultimately benefiting us who live in the neighborhood. It's helping keep the rats away, keep the neighborhood looking nice,” he said.
Orly Santo, 47, worried about trash accumulating with one less day of swept streets. “ I don't have a car, so, mostly cons for me,” she said. “But for people who do have a car, this is going to be a relief. I'm not too happy about it.”
Gragnani added that any neighborhood that wants to participate in the pilot should have their community board petition the sanitation department.
He said the streets would also be cleaner if state legislators passed a law to allow street sweepers to be equipped with cameras to ticket scofflaw drivers.
Gragnani hopes the recently passed City Council local law allowing the sanitation department to put stickers on cars that break the rules will have an impact as well and will lead “to more widespread compliance that would allow us to effectively clean the streets.”
