Prospect Heights alternate-side parking pilot ends after compliance fell 11%

A summer experiment that let some Prospect Heights drivers move their cars for street cleaning once a week instead of twice is over. The Sanitation Department says compliance fell and streets got dirtier, so full Alternate Side Parking rules stay in place.

Streetsblog and CBS New York both reported the results. The pilot ran Aug. 3 through Sept. 25 in a roughly 10-by-two-block stretch from Atlantic Avenue to Eastern Parkway between Vanderbilt and Grand avenues, covering parts of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, Streetsblog reported.

What the numbers showed

DSNY cut the required moves from two days per week per side of the street to one. Compliance with the remaining rules dropped 11%, from 73% to 62%, according to both outlets. Average monthly tickets edged up from 455 to 457 even though enforcement days were cut in half, Streetsblog and CBS reported. Building owners also kept sidewalks less clean during the test, Streetsblog said, citing DSNY monitoring.

"I was hoping that this could've proven that fewer days of alternate side parking enforcement would yield greater compliance, but that's just not what the data has shown," Council Member Crystal Hudson, who requested the pilot, told Streetsblog. She gave CBS a similar assessment.

Why DSNY ended it

Sanitation Press Secretary Vincent Gragnani told CBS the concept was to require one move per week per side — "but you really have to do it." He said people did not, and compliance worsened. DSNY Deputy Commissioner Joshua Goodman told Streetsblog dirty streets are not an academic problem: debris that is not swept can block catch basins and worsen flooding. The street-sweeping fine is $65.

Hudson and some residents had argued twice-a-week rules were an unfair burden compared with neighborhoods like Park Slope that clean once per side, Streetsblog reported. About two-thirds of households in Hudson's district do not own a car, per Census figures cited by Streetsblog. With the pilot closed, ASP schedules in the area revert to the prior rules; residents who want changes still go through community boards and need DSNY and DOT sign-off, Goodman said.