Hamodia Exclusive: NYC Ending Most Daytime Trash Collection in Boro Park

BROOKLYN - Tackling Boro Park’s biggest traffic problem, Mayor Bill de Blasio is announcing a shift of sanitation collections from the morning rush hour to the wee hours of the night, which will remove 79 percent of the garbage trucks servicing  the neighborhood, Hamodia learned exclusively.
The arrangement, which will go into effect on April 4, will go a long way in solving a jam decades in the making but which has increasingly taken on a crisis magnitude. The number of school buses roaring down the fewer than three square miles which makes up Boro Park has more than doubled since a 2011 law allowed most yeshivos to purchase their own fleet. The mayor is scheduled to announce the changes Sunday night at a dinner for the Bobover mosdos.


“Our administration is committed to working for our neighborhoods — in Borough Park and across the city,” de Blasio said in a statement to Hamodia, using an alternative spelling to the Orthodox-heavy neighborhood. “That means responding to community needs while providing vital services in an effective and timely way.”

“Borough Park families know too well the congestion on our streets every morning when hundreds of school buses encounter sanitation trucks,” added the mayor, who represented parts of the neighborhood in the city council from 2002 until 2010. “After hearing from families, we were able to find a win-win solution that will get kids to school on time and ensure trash and recycling is picked up effectively, all while avoiding the frustration of overcrowded streets.”

The area covered by the agreement, Sanitation Commission Kathryn Garcia told Hamodia in a telephone conversation on Sunday, extends from 8th Ave. to 18th Ave. and from 46th St. until 61st St. It involves rescheduling the times for recycling pickups from the 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. morning shift to the overnight shift, which begins at midnight and ends at 8 a.m. Residents may still take out their garbage the night before.

“We were focused on the area that’s been identified in the community as problematic from a traffic point of view,” said Garcia, who visited Boro Park last year to see the issue from up close. “The elected [officials] identified an area where they felt was significantly impacted by the garbage truck and buses situation. In order to try and mitigate it, we’ve come up with a plan that will move some of our trucks to overnight rather than during the day and switching the collection days.” Read more at  HAMODIA.COM