PPA issues 3,000-plus parking tickets for street cleaning violations
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Ticket after ticket after ticket on 24th Street near Catherine on Monday morning, as ticket enforcement started in the street cleaning zones. But not everyone we talked with in Point Breeze got the memo.
"They left paper on everyone's cars like months ago saying 'Hey we're you gotta start moving your car on Mondays.' They hung the signs, but nothing started and no one really knew that today was the day," Matt Alba said.
Philadelphia Parking Authority officials told CBS News Philadelphia its officers handed out 3,053 tickets in the 14 street cleaning zones on Monday. At $31 each, That's more than $94,000 in fines issued. But city leaders say all those cars are roadblocks to cleaning up the streets.
"We're trying our best to clean the city. It's team work," Troy Cooper, with the Streets Department, said. "We need the residents to help us, and we'll do our part. So I believe we can get a lot done together."
This marks Phase III of Mayor Jim Kenney's Mechanical Cleaning Program, targeting more than a dozen neighborhoods the city says have the highest concentration of litter, according to its "Litter Index."
But groups around the city are looking for more from Kenney's successor. The organization Circular Philadelphia is part of the Waste Free Philly coalition, a group of environmental organizations pushing candidates to clean up the city.
"We want to see the next mayor get our trash pickup back on time, make sure at least our trash and recycling is being separated," Nic Esposito, with Circular Philadelphia, said. "And then take those next steps to things like city-wide composting."
The top five democratic mayoral candidates in last week's Committee of Seventy poll all mentioned cleaner streets as some part of their platform. Esposito says his team has heard from many Philadelphians concerned over the trash situation.
"The residents, those people, the advocates, the people who are just living this day to day," Esposito said. "They see the connection. They see how dirty our streets are. This litter doesn't just appear from anywhere."
But for residents we spoke with in Point Breeze, other issues trumped cleaner streets when it came to their vote.
"The streets can get clean, but we need a lot of other cleaning up to get done. Drugs, stuff like that, people on the corner selling drugs," Adam Turner said.
To find a list of the streets that will be cleaned, and when your neighborhood will see a sweeper, click here.
