Transportation News: Street Cleaning Pilot & Faster Buses

**Kusha Navadar** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Kusha Navadar filling in for Brian. Now we'll talk about transportation. In one Brooklyn neighborhood, there's a new pilot program asking car owners to move their vehicles fewer times per week. Here's the idea.
If alternate side parking happens less, drivers might comply more. And maybe it'll be easier for street sweepers to sweep the streets.
We'll talk to WNYC and Gothamist transportation reporter Stephen Nessen about where it's happening and whether it might be replicated in other neighborhoods or even citywide. We'll also talk about another story that Stephen's following, how Mayor Zoran Mamdani's plan to speed up city buses on Brooklyn's Flatbush Avenue may come at the expense of the borough's famous infamous dollar vans. And we'll get a postmortem on how local transit served the many World Cup tourists in New York City and New Jersey. Let's dive in with Stephen Nessen, transportation reporter for the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom. Stephen, welcome back to the show.

**Stephen Nessen** (1:11)
Thanks for having me.

**Kusha Navadar** (1:12)
Listeners, we can take some phone calls. You can ask Stephen a question about any of these transportation stories. Here's the number 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.
Call or text us. OK, so Stephen, you call alternate side parking a, quote, regular source of misery for many New York City car owners. Maybe an understatement. In one neighborhood in Brooklyn, things could get a little easier. What's happening?

**Stephen Nessen** (1:40)
Right. So in Prospect Heights, it's really just nine blocks. This is a very, very small pilot. But basically running, if folks know, from Pacific Street to Lincoln Place and Vanderbilt Avenue to Washington or Grand Avenues. And so what they're going to do is this is one of those areas where each side of the street has two days of alternate side parking. So it's either something like Tuesday, Thursday or Monday, Friday. So Crystal Hudson, who's the city council member there, came up with the idea. I think she was petitioned by the community board. They want to try getting rid of the last day. So that last Thursday, Friday days, those will just be canceled. You won't have to move your car those days, only the first day. And the reason they want to try this is it's actually kind of contradictory in some ways. Like on the one hand, the block is so clean, the Department of Sanitation decided they don't really need it twice a week. Neighbors do a good enough job cleaning the streets if there's debris. You have to clear a certain amount up to the curb.
And alternatively, they also want to encourage people to move their cars during alternate side parking. So her thinking is two days a week is a lot to ask of people. Let's just do it once. And if I only make you do it once, will you do it?
So it's sort of a test to see if folks are going to get the treat of not having to move their car twice a week, but during that one day, you better move the car.

**Kusha Navadar** (3:03)
So on these nine blocks, it's not necessarily super dirty, but it's more like an experiment to see. It's like a behavioral economics experiment. Can we get it maybe to be replicated in other places where it could actually make it cleaner? Am I getting that right?

**Stephen Nessen** (3:16)
That's right.
And folks may recall during the COVID pandemic in 2020, Mayor de Blasio did the same thing for the whole city because they didn't want folks going out. That was the time of lockdown. So it was like, we don't want people going out to move their cars. Nobody's driving that much anyways. And that lasted for almost two years.
And you may recall Mayor Adams taking office and having a massive rat problem and a litter problem and a trash problem. And I think some folks attributed that to the lack of street cleaning that was happening because folks weren't moving their cars twice a week for alternate side. So this pilot in Prospect Heights is very small, very preliminary, but the Department of Sanitation says, if any community board wants to do this, they just need to send a petition to the Department of Sanitation.

**Kusha Navadar** (4:06)
I'm happy that you brought up the rats because I was going to ask about that a little later, but let's go to it now. Like you said, the change was reversed from de Blasio to Adams a couple of years later. Rats were a factor in that move. Is that a risk here?

**Stephen Nessen** (4:22)
Well, I suppose it could be, but again, I think this neighborhood in Prospect Heights is relatively known for being pretty tidy. They're not going to do it in a neighborhood that Department of Sanitation deems needing more street cleaning.