Away_Swimming_5757 t1_jd4ouc2 wrote
Reply to comment by PhillyAccount in Philly Is Bringing Back Street Sweeping: You Will Need to Move Cars in These Places by youngbuck215
Large programs are best done in phases as a pilot program. Doing this citywide without neighborhood pilots to gain learnings from results in less wasted money and big process-related mistakes. They are doing this in phases, in key areas, so they can learn how to rollout it out citywide in a more effective manner. Project rollout is a key part of success of said project
Thot_P0cket t1_jd4qmad wrote
> Large programs are best done in phases as a pilot program. Doing this citywide without neighborhood pilots to gain learnings from results in less wasted money and big process-related mistakes. They are doing this in phases, in key areas, so they can learn how to rollout it out citywide in a more effective manner. Project rollout is a key part of success of said project
This isn't splitting the atom, it's cleaning trash out of streets using machines that have been around for decades and are used by thousands of people regularly in cities all across the country.
I'm sure that somewhere out there in the United States there are resources the city of Philadelphia could use in order to fully implement functional street sweeping in the city without having to waste time and money fucking around with pilot programs.
cerialthriller t1_jd4rqov wrote
They still haven’t figured out trash collection that’s been done since Roman times
cashonlyplz t1_jd63q4r wrote
People apparently don't know how to even throw their trash away--it certainly exacerbates the sporadic service we've been dealing with the past few years
cerialthriller t1_jd66oy5 wrote
It’s a three pronged problem. First, your trash cans disappear really quickly. The lids even quicker. Two, people pick through your trash and recycling and just toss it on the ground to get to what they want, not to mention animals do this also. And lastly, the trash men don’t give a fuck if they drop something or rip a bag and just throw your can back at your house over the cars if you still have a can
cashonlyplz t1_jd8csz6 wrote
Ugh, I feel you but some of them do their job above and beyond (e.g. trash trucks with a broom and dustpan mounted on the back are a good indicator).
I have stories.
The biggest issue with the city is near zero on-the-ground accountability towards nonsensical behavior, be it of a citizen or a municipal worker. How many times a week do I have to see idiot contractors pushing brick dust or what-have-you, down a street grate. It's absurd.
puckpanix t1_jd65jpd wrote
My observation is that most people put it out properly, but (if the garbage crew can even navigate down the street due to illegal parkers) half the bags are opened and picked over by junkies before they make the route.
cashonlyplz t1_jd8bugm wrote
I'm fortunate whereas I don't live around too many junkies, and crack/crackheads are much harder to encounter nowadays. My next door neighbors have two ypung kids and at least three or four adults in their place.
We live in West Philly. We have trees. we have squirrels and avians. The house produces so much trash by the day after trash day, and they don't cover them at all and of course squirrels and birds rip into the bags and then there's trash everywhere, and it gets blown into our little front yard. I swear, I came home one day and a squirrel looked like it wanted to fight me, it was so well fed. They take the food to our porch and eat and shit there.
They recently put a campaign sign up for Jeff "Pick Up the Damn Trash" Brown. The cognitive dissonance pisses me off to no end.
There's trash everywhere because these people think civil servants are their personal custodians, and not something that need to take the smallest amount of responsibility for.
Trash pick-up isn't perfect, and the pandemic took out workers they're still working to replace, but ye gods, people don't take responsibility for their own actions (or, as often is the case, inactions)
Away_Swimming_5757 t1_jd4xsby wrote
It's not rocket science, but its also operationally intense. You can't just copy and paste other cities approaches because we have a completely different operating model.
They're doing this in limited scope because there will likely be many unforeseen situations that will need to be addressed. They will analyze and react to the unforeseen stuff which will give them a more realistic view of the painpoints of the actual sweeping and the operational painpoints of capacity planning for this appropriately. They will also need to likely hire and reassign different teams to support this so understanding which roles and accountability decisions will need to be made.
Once they have muscle memory built up and find a good balance of operational finesse, they can consider expanding it to be more wide reaching.
Large programs, even when the task at hand is not complex, become inherently complex once its added into a larger function (aka city government/ municipal services). This is a widely studied aspect of program management and should not be underestimated.
erdtirdmans t1_jd55tgg wrote
We literally used to do this. The city layout hasn't changed much at all. Roll out the old plans
oramirite t1_jd5evnd wrote
"roll out the old plans" is pretty clearly an oversimplification of what it takes to run an infrastructure service in a major city. It's not simple.
felldestroyed t1_jd57wp2 wrote
And tow/ticket a whole bunch of poor people's cars so they can't show up to work? It's easy to say "tough shit" online, but a whole lot more goes into public administration than that.
GruffEnglishGentlman t1_jd5b97t wrote
Then move the damn car. This isn’t rocket science and it’s not oppressive.
oramirite t1_jd5f5wm wrote
Stop claiming something has to be rocket science in order to be semi-comllicated and operationally intense.
felldestroyed t1_jd5e127 wrote
Lol, yup, just as easy as that. No one will be harmed! It's not rocket science, it's common sense yall! Until your entire district is lighting up your switchboards wondering why noone informed them and why the hell we even need street cleaning - it was fine to your constituents before now. And the retiree really hates that you towed her car and she knows how she will get back at you: a primary.
You act like this isn't something that hasn't been studied for around 150 years. That the first Roosevelt didn't struggle implementing - that every single politician and city manager implements. There are doctorates in this and they still can't solve it. And fortunately for these neighborhoods: they won't just be railroaded any longer, like they were for at least 3 generations with highways, railways, and shitty gentrification.
erdtirdmans t1_jd6eut0 wrote
Oh, well, poor people might be affected by our attempts to improve the city. Might as well just let it degrade to shit. That way all the poor people who can't move out of it can enjoy what's left of it knowing that we were really nice to them when we doomed them to hell
[deleted] t1_jd4yd11 wrote
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oramirite t1_jd5f2y8 wrote
No, a pilot program is literally so that any problems in the rollout(any large rollout ever has them) have a minimal financial effect, and then you very quickly bootstrap those lessons into the wider plan. What you're suggesting wouldn't even speed things up that much and very well could doom the program again if a small issue runs amok because they opened the floodgates too early.
TheTwoOneFive t1_jd5f6lq wrote
It took a full street sweeping season before they would allow PPA to ticket cars. We are about to start the 2nd season after the expansion to 14 areas and they have announced it will be another season and a half away before the next expansion in July 2024. At that point, they will add 6 more areas.
Based on average size of the areas, in July 2024, five years after they started the "pilot programs", the city will cover about 8% of the city surface area with street sweeping zones, and that does not include the smaller streets. For example, in the Point Breeze Map area, the city is missing tons of smaller side streets that are wide enough for a sweeper, but requires cars to be moved to do so (e.g. Fernon, Chadwick, Mole, Hicks, etc). Additionally, there are streets that a sweeper can get down even if someone is still parked there, like Montrose or Oakford, but are not getting swept currently.
There is ZERO reason it should take this long to roll out street sweeping to such a small area, without even a public timeline on a full rollout.
PhillyAccount t1_jd56iok wrote
Okay, this makes sense. I guess my concern is that the city calls the pilot a "success" and then moves on to something else.
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