City changes trash collection times for Borough Park

Sanitation trucks will not be on streets during rush hour

March 8, 2016 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Councilmember David G. Greenfield (right) shares a joke with Assemblymember Dov Hikind (left) as Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia looks on. Photo courtesy of Greenfield’s office

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In a move hailed by Borough Park elected officials and religious leaders, the de Blasio administration is changing the schedule for trash collections in Borough Park to ensure that sanitation trucks are not clogging local streets during morning rush hours.

The decision, announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio at a Borough Park dinner event on Sunday, is expected to ease traffic in a neighborhood where congestion on the roadways has been a major headache for area residents, according to Councilmember David G. Greenfield, who strongly advocated for the change.

Under the new schedule, set to begin on April 4, trash and recycling pick-ups that used to take place from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. will be moved to the overnight shift, so that collections will begin at midnight and end by 8 a.m.

Greenfield (D-Borough Park-Midwood-Bensonhurst) publicly thanked the mayor and Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia for their work in helping to alleviate the neighborhood’s traffic problem.

“Today’s action is not a silver bullet,” Greenfield said in a statement. “There is always going to be traffic. But while it may not solve the entire problem, what we announced today will make a real measurable difference in the lives of my constituents. It will be easier to drive through Borough Park in the morning. “

Assemblymember Dov Hikind (D-Borough Park-Midwood), who also worked to convince the de Blasio administration to make the change, said the problem stemmed from the fact that yeshiva buses and sanitation trucks are out simultaneously in the mornings, posing a major traffic dilemma within the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.

“Borough Park is so unique in that we have many children attending many yeshivas, a very family-oriented community. However, when you combine the slew of yeshiva buses out on the roads with the sanitation trucks out picking up trash and recycling during rush hour, you have huge traffic jams that can make it very difficult to get navigate through the neighborhood. With this resolution, everyone wins, even the children taking the bus to school. No longer will they be stuck on the bus indefinitely, waiting to be dropped off. Every member of our community wins, whether you drive or not,” Hikind stated.

In an effort to highlight the issue, Hikind invited Garcia for a tour around the neighborhood last year to see the traffic congestion first-hand.