Dirty Street

Here's my street a couple of hours after the city "cleaned" it. Two big street sweepers came down one side of Salem, one behind the other, then came back and went down the other side. So why does the street look so crappy?

Salem is one way, with parking on the even side only. Therefore, the cars drive way over to the left, and debris tends to be blown over to the right, where it lodges under cars and settles. The sweepers came early in the morning when my side of the street was lined solid with cars. They could get way over to one side--but that side was clean anyway. When they made the other pass, they had to keep to the middle of the street--but that was clean anyway. Therefore, they picked up practically nothing.

By mid-morning, there wasn't a car on the block, as you can see. The foreground is clean because that's in front of my house and I went out and cleaned it myself with a broom. It took me a couple of hours to dig out all the mud and wet leaves and bag them.

I don't understand why the city bothers to use resources if they don't plan intelligently. This operation was a waste of manpower and gasoline. Why not arrange for cars to be off the street before cleaning? Kind of like throwing everybody out of the family room before you vacuum it? If a housewife can figure that out, somebody at the DPW ought to be able to as well.