A new street sweeping program has begun to expand in Philadelphia. The program has been in the experimental phase for the last seven months in different neighborhoods and has found success in decreasing street trash in these neighborhoods. The six neighborhoods that the program was tested in were areas known for their high rates of litter; the six areas being in West Philadelphia, Southwest Philadelphia, Kensington, Strawberry Mansion, Logan, and South Philadelphia.
Temple student, Talia Irvine, thinks the initiative is important since there was no street sweeping program previously in place.
Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration announced a $2.3 million program designed to experiment with different cleaning strategies. One of the strategies was using leaf blowers to dislodge trash from underneath parked cars. The second phase of the program is expected to start April 1st and end by December.
Right now, Philadelphia is the only major city with no street cleaning program because of budget cuts and backlash from residents over parking tickets given on sweeping days. The program will require residents to move their cars off the streets on sweeping days though.
Philadelphia resident, Sam Lindhart, said that parking is already hard enough to find in Philadelphia so not being able to park on certain streets at certain times will make parking more difficult than it needs to be.
The city will give residents a month-long warning period for tickets starting on July 1st but by August they will start issuing tickets for $31 to anyone parked on the streets on a sweeping day.
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