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Get out of the way, the street sweepers must feed.
As fall foliage blankets roads across the five boroughs, the sanitation department’s trusty brooms on four wheels are sucking up more debris than any other time of the year. City officials report the big bruisers have an insatiable appetite for leaves.
During a typical autumn week when the city’s oaks, maples and London plane trees shed amber and yellow leaves, DSNY deploys an additional 364 street sweepers along new routes — or about a 31% increase from the usual 1,162 weekly routes for the fleet of giant vacuums.
A sanitation department spokesperson said crews have to make hundreds of “short dumps” every week this time of year, where the mechanical brooms become bloated and must purge in the middle of a route so they can get back to devouring leafy goodness.
Each street sweeper can hold up to 1,500 pounds of debris. For most of the year, that’s made up of regular old New York City street trash, like bodega bags, rat carcasses and Coney Island whitefish. But during the fall, leaves occupy much of the street sweepers’ diet.
This work isn’t just about an annual harvest sacrifice to the city’s mechanized munchers — clearing the leaves off the street prevents storm drains form clogging which can lead to serious flooding.
New Yorkers who don’t move their cars for alternate side parking to make way for the street sweeper hinder the process, sometimes with dire consequences. When Hurricane Ida struck in 2021, there was increased flooding in some areas of the city where storm drains were jammed with trash. At the time, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio had reduced alternate side parking across the city, leading to more trash on the roads.
“Richard Wright wrote that the gale of autumn swept the trees clean of leaves and drew the hills near, but on New York City streets, the only thing drawn near by a leafless tree is a clogged storm drain,” said DSNY spokesperson Joshua Goodman. “Move your car during alternate side parking and avoid the autumn gale of a $65 fine.”
Curious Commuter
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Question from Ada in Brooklyn
Where will the IBX route run in Brooklyn?
Answer
The MTA and Gov. Kathy Hochul have promised the IBX, or Interborough Express, light rail route for so long that it’s understandable readers like Ada have forgotten where it will run. The MTA plans for the train line to run between Jackson Heights, Queens and the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park, primarily along an existing set of freight tracks. After nearly four years, the agency is still designing the route. Here’s hoping the actual train moves faster than the planning process. Stay tuned to this newsletter for future updates on the project.
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