The Bronx and Manhattan have NYC’s dirtiest streets: mayoral scorecard
The Bronx and Manhattan rank the lowest on a mayoral scorecard for the cleanliness of city streets, as garbage has piled up in the boroughs following $100 million in cuts to the Sanitation Department.
“This isn’t a surprise. Every day, Bronxites see and live with the results of City Hall’s divestment in the sanitation and quality of life in our borough,” Councilman Mark Gjonaj told The Post Thursday.
“I appreciate that our city is facing a fiscal shortfall, but now is not the time to cut and run on the basic needs of the communities that need us most,” the Bronx Democrat said. His office has started working with local groups to clean the continuously trash-strewn area around the 6 train stop on Westchester Avenue at the intersection of Buhre and Crosby avenues.
An official mayoral report of “acceptably clean citystreets” showed declines across the five boroughs in July compared to the same time last year — and only slight improvements in August. September’s figures are not available until the end of next month.
The dirtiest borough in July was The Bronx — with just 85.6 percent of streets ranking as “acceptably clean” compared to 97.3 percent in 2019. Just over 90 percent of Manhattan roadways got a passing grade in July, compared to over 96 percent last year.
The next filthiest boroughs were Brooklyn followed by Queens and then Staten Island.
“I think cutting sanitation services is unwise in the best of times but when the public’s health is at risk and the city is suffering the worst recession in recent memory we have to redouble our efforts to protect our reputation as a livable and safe city,” Hoylman told The Post.
“It’s an essential service and it is crucial to our comeback here in the city post-COVID,” he said.
“It’s unacceptable that levels of collection are falling and as a New Yorker it’s been apparent but also as a public official I’ve received a lot of complaints — since this summer,” he said.
Among the over $100 million in cuts made to the Dept. of Sanitation budget in June were $21 million for curbside litter basket pickup, though Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to restore some of the funding in September following a scathing letter from business leaders about quality of life concerns across the city.
Department of Sanitation Spokesman Joshua Goodman said the restorations will affect 27 neighborhoods with the greatest needs including eight in The Bronx.
“The hard-working team at the Department of Sanitation has done an incredible job in the face of a citywide crisis like no other, and we take our role keeping the city safe, clean, and healthy incredibly seriously,” Goodman said.
“We are also stepping up our efforts to support community clean-up initiatives, lending tools directly to groups that want to do their part, and have had more community clean-ups in Fiscal Year 2020 to 2021 so far than there were in all of the prior year,” he said.
Still, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who is also running to replace de Blasio, decried the sanitation cuts.
“Piles of trash and dirty streets are completely unacceptable as our small businesses struggle to attract customers and survive the pandemic,” Stringer said.
“Keeping the streets clean is a basic function of government, and it is outrageous that the City is withholding the essential services that businesses need to generate revenue — the very same revenue that the City needs for our economic and fiscal recovery.”
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