Philadelphian Politics
 

Philly, get ready to move your cars. Citywide street sweeping is coming by 2023, Kenney says.

Thank god this is finally happening - but why start in 3 years instead of sooner?

if you read it he is saying by that year it will be citywide- he isnt saying nothing happens between now and then. i.e. it will ramp up and expand over next 3 years.

It’s very unacceptable that Kenney ran on street sweeping in 2015 and not only didn’t deliver in his first term but is now saying it won’t be fully rolled out until the end of his second term. We deserve better leaders who are held accountable for not delivering on their campaign promises.

He's such a mediocre mayor. Fingers crossed for somebody who values competency in the next cycle. My #1 is Alan Domb.

:cheers:

He’s been awful. Trash in the streets, the roads are in total disrepair, etc. we deserve better.

I suspect Alan Domb would get tons of pushback from the socialist taking over Philly government. Last summer, I had a socialist canvassing for the Dem primaries show up at my door begging me to vote for anyone but Domb. She then proceeded to tell me she was against the tax abatements, has 7 cats, is a grad student studying philosophy, and wants Philly to provide houses for everyone. I told her to look at the schools, roads, and trash as the city can’t do the basics right but less manage housing. Anyways, the point is he’d have lots of pushback, though I’d love to see him run.

Make Squilla has been a great ward leader for us. I’d be interested in seeing him run.

Lol

There’s street sweeping now and it’s already been expanded to a larger portion of the city. Great to see it further expanded

There’s only street sweeping in center city and maybe a couple other areas. The rest of the city is ZERO since it was cut in the 2000s. He campaigned on rolling it out citywide in 2015 and didn’t deliver in his first term.

Kenney did a pilot to expand last year which consisted of a truck they spent a million on and then it was oversized and couldn’t fit down many streets in the pilot zones. When neighborhoods have tried to start their own street cleaning, Kenney shut it down saying it was hurting the unions.

So think about that. The city wouldn’t provide this basic service that every other major city has nor would they let neighborhoods do it themselves. Absolutely shameful.

There was no way you were getting full sweeping in first term- they dont even have enough equipment to make that possible. Staff and machinery don't just appear out of thin air after a politician makes a promise. Its a similar story with the paving- one reason for the less than adequate paving output each year was the amount of staff and paving equipment available. They had to add personnel and purchase new equipment such that 3 paving crews could operate simultaneously during the summer months.

The issue you are describing only pertained to very narrow streets in the target zones- it was not an issue for most of the trial areas. And in the 30 years ive been around there has never been universal street cleaning- there was some seasonal cleaning on CERTAIN major avenues until Nutter cut it. People need to be honest about what we actually had and what exists in other cities- cleaning every single block in Philly would be expensive and frankly illogical considering it's not really needed on many residential blocks in the "nicer" areas.

CBD's are generally clean like sidewalk sweeping and the streets are clean as a consequence. But some main thoroughfare like Broad Street, Washington Ave to name a couple could benefit from street sweeping.

Street sweeping was always going to be a second term thing - no one wanted to deal with potential political blowback, especially after doing something as controversial as the beverage tax. But the money has been allocated in the budget and it's coming, they just need to hire people and get the equipment.

Re: street paving, page 19 of this shows things are getting better: https://www.phila.gov/media/20200106...ERM-REPORT.pdf
Just anecdotally, still plenty of improvement needed, but the roads do seem a bit better than they were 2-3 years ago.

If this is how you respond to good news...

Just for future reference. No one cares to hear "ScreamShatter" opine on politics. Just keep in mind, you don't have to post every goddamn thought rolling around in your head. Socialists taking over philly... jesus christ.:uhh:

It's incredible how some people just can't help themselves.

^Amen, that guy is pretty triggered. I noticed "Dread---" was banned, tensions are running high on the old SSP boards! :notacrook:

I agree that sweeping on every block doesn't make sense, especially the narrow streets. Getting the city to at least do sweeping on the major thoroughfares will be a huge improvement. A lot of the litter on the smaller blocks comes from trash getting blown around from the larger streets. There are also obvious problem areas that have collected huge piles of trash over the years that just need a one-time cleaning and more prevention around illegal dumping.

I think there also needs to be a push for more community involvement as well. Encouraging residents to participate will foster more respect for the cleanliness of their neighborhood. This can be done by just having more cleanup days through out the year. Right now it's very hard to organize block cleanups based on the timeline (I think just a couple days a year) and everyone's schedule, not to mention that the city doesn't really make it easy collecting the trash that gets bagged (you need to walk it several blocks in some cases to a pickup point).

That graph on page 19 explains a lot about the state of the streets. I wonder if the funds got hit from the recession and then never made it back or did they just get diverted to other things. In any case, I'm looking forward to 22nd finally getting paved.

He is kind of right about the socialist thing though.

Crime is up in basically every major way, those paying the lion's share of taxes are tired of worrying about danger everywhere.

So yes, supplying houses for everyone is not at the top of my mind. Sustainable and non-alienating revenue growth is at the top of my mind. Is it really difficult to understand that if Center City loses it's appeal the entire city will fail?

It must be exhausting to be so miserable all of the time.

Alan Domb will speak with a level of clarity that others won't even know how to formulate a plan to create.

I have heard him say he thinks he can lift 100,000 people out of poverty in Philadelphia.

Guess what? He will have a plan to do it that doesn't just involve spending more money with zero accounting (Kenney's answer to everything), and he will hold himself accountable.

I think when you hear goals like that. Very specific goals. Not just "we're going to improve education", it will be hard to ignore him.

He has some unlikely allies from the "socialist" wing...i.e. Gym etc. They've always had a good working relationship on council.

He will surprise you.