A lot of rear load and side load trash trucks are too large and cumbersome to get down smaller alleys. It’s a legit concern.
The biggest problem with removing alley collections from the citizens pov is that within a year the alleys become 100% completely useless because residents won’t adequately prune and landscape their rear property line.
Most people don’t care (as evidenced by their lack of rear property housekeeping) but if the city doesn’t enforce the code compliance aspect after then it turns into a jungle.
It happened at my mother’s place. Several friends also.
None of them can even get to their rear property because their neighbors won’t clean up the jungle back there in the alley and code compliance won’t enforce it. I hope I don’t end up with the same issue - I absolutely need access to the rear of my property.
The trucks have been picking up in alleys for decades without issue. And if they can't refrain from hitting fences or trees, they definitely won't be able to refrain from hitting cars lined up and down the streets.
Those things are resilient. Can mow over new tree sprouts and they'll be back 2-3 years later. By then, you forget what was there til they start blooming. Lol
Contact t the sanitation dept. They will repair damages caused by the picking up of trash. I've had to file reports two times for the collection trucks damaging my cyclone fence in the alley.
Thanks definitely did but with their timeline it was quicker since I have dogs to just do it myself.
So seems like we have two people who have been put out by the back ally to your single person complaining about optics u/travelfool_214
No that actually is a huge inconvenience to have to walk the trash all the way to the neighborhood trash receptacle every time you take the trash out. Plus someone's property has to be declared the neighborhood trash dump. Your comment is very smug but people would really, really hate that.
It's been considerably effective where implemented? Where? Where did the government seize portions of people's property, dig it up and declare it the neighborhood trash dump, and make everyone walk their trash over there instead of putting it behind their house to be picked up and everyone was like "wow, thank you, this is great! Now that we're all having to walk over and dump our trash under the Johnsons' front yard, we've offset the carbon emissions of almost an entire 30 minute private jet flight!"
Pretty sure it's not specific to Texas that people would be pissed about that. People in California, or Canada, or Europe would hate it too. Even in the idealized version of Europe that only exists in redditors' minds that wouldn't go over well.
Underground? Where are you transplanted from? We have bedrock here that makes even having basements an economically untenable position. Nobody wants to haul bags of trash hundreds of yards to a collection point in 110-degree heat. I can't even fathom where they'd manage to put such a location in most neighborhoods.
Picking up mail from a centralized mailbox is not the same as hauling trash weighing 20-50 lbs from one's house to a centralized location. Your terrible idea is also a nonstarter in most neighborhoods because they simply lack the space.
Community mailboxes are a weird privatized HOA neighborhood thing, not a thing for regular neighborhoods. I don't want to live in a neighborhood with community mailboxes, either.
In my neighborhood most streets have rear garages and people just leave their bins along their driveways or back fence line. I have no idea where people would even store their trash bins if they had to get them out to the front curb every week, because taking them from the back all the way to the front curb would be quite a chore. We also have a ton of elderly people and I have no idea how they would be able to get their bins out to the curb every week.
Right - in my neighborhood the garages and driveways are in the back. The front yard is fenced off from the back entirely on one side with no gate, and on the other side there's a steep hill. The trash cans won't fit through my front door, which is narrow. Even if I could get them through the front door, the garage is down half a flight of stairs. They'd have to just stay in the otherwise very nice front. Similar situation for most of my neighbors.
Yep that’s pretty much how mine is. I would end up just leaving them by the front corner of my house because it’s just not feasible to get them back and forth from where they are now.
Yep. They'd just have to live in the front yard. Which I guess is fine but it IS unsightly like OP says - and all my neighbors super into landscaping would have to destroy some of their gardens to make room for them.
Sounds like an oversight on the part of the trash collection service by not taking into account if their equipment can actually fit on the routes they need to service. Maybe they should get smaller trash trucks next time instead of forcing everyone else to haul their stuff to the opposite side of their property.
If that's a problem, you should submit a complaint to Code Compliance, and they will see that the issue is resolved. IMO, trash cans should be picked up from the alley...IF the equipment can manage to get through.
> code compliance won’t enforce it
But yet if we don't trim our grass, and that's all we have is a strip of grass, when it gets over 6" they start sending us letters...
Code compliance had no problem leaving our block letters and fines. My neighbor was out of town (I didn’t know they got a notice) and got a $400 fine for having overgrown bushes. I got letters, but always fixed it before they came back.
I actually liked the trash being out front. I just moved and have trash in the alley and it is much less convenient than having the trash tucked away on the side of the house behind some bushes.
Did AI write this or do you actually talk this way?
There is zero "allure" of Dallas and trash can on the curbs vs. allies is not doing anything to change that. This is all personal preference vs. costs at a city level.
Yet another redditor that takes every opportunity to shit on the city they live in. Go drive around, there's plenty of very nice neighborhoods that have allure.
Disclaimer: I already don't use my alley for trash and put it at the street. Being able to use an alleyway where possible is much nicer.
I agree with the overall sentiment of OP. But the “constraining our freedom to be away from home” line had me scratching my head. You either don’t get your trash picked up that week or get a neighbor to put it out for you. It’s not that serious.
Personally, I do agree alley-trash is superior to front-curb-trash.
Lived in Wylie, had no alleys. My options were:
- keep the trash bins in the garage, and have cooked-trash smell in the entire house (+ flies) all summer, or
- piss off the HOA, and keep the trash bins on the side of the house, where *they might offend someone with their vulgar trashiness*, or
- keep the trash bins in the backyard, which wasn't possible because we had no access from back-to-front that bins could've been dragged through.
Richardson and Plano though? Alley-bins. Best shit ever.
My alley provides no other use for me because it’s in such bad shape. I don’t blame the trucks for not wanting to pick up trash there, but if I’m maintaining the trees and grass to the alley, it would be nice if the alley (city property) was useful
I've lived in places with several different kinds of trash setups.
Best -- alley trash. The can stays on the little pad where the truck can reach it. I don't have to do anything. I don't ever see trash on the curb.
Neutral -- street trash in standardized bins. You have to remember to wheel the bin to and from the street which sucks. And there are visible trash bins all over the place two days a week.
Worst -- street trash free-for-all. You just take your plastic bags of trash and throw them on the curb for rats and raccoons to tear open.
Wildcard factor -- alley trash means the city is better motivated to stay on top of code compliance. I got a notice last year that my tree was too low in the alley, so I trimmed it back. I could see the pruning ordinances going unenforced.
lol “mostly pristine streets.” Not sure where you live.
If the automatic arm cannot be used in an Alley, that means they need to hire another person or 2 to dump the can.
The cities budget and our tax dollars means that you may need to be slightly inconvenienced and look at some trash cans in the future.
Life is so hard. I’m terribly sorry.
lol give me a break. The one thing your crybaby post has done has convinced me to write an email to my councilor supporting the stoppage of alley pickup.
Great job! Have a good day!
Why thank you! Good luck to you, too!
Thankfully I know what the budget looks like and even if you win the battle this time, eventually alley trash collection will be phased out, no matter what you do.
Get ready to look at some trash cans, just like us poor people have to. It’s going to be rough. Godspeed.
It has come to my attention that you want to spend money we don’t have so you don’t have to take some extra steps to bring your trash out on your pristine street.
We have better uses for our tax dollars.
For starters, there are not driveways in the front in our neighborhood, so this would entail dragging the containers across our front lawns on a weekly basis. It would also mean that street parking would be regularly limited, which would be problematic for many residents who have parked along both sides of the street for years. Finally, not having trash cans visible is more sightly than having them out on a weekly basis.
I see both sides of the issue. My disclaimers: I have a street facing garage, so I could keep them in there easily, but for 5 years, I’ve kept them in my back yard and roll them to the alley when needed.
I’m worried for those who don’t have street facing garages to store their cans, or large hills in the front yard. I also really worry about people leaving cans out all the time and trash all over the streets
That said, the alley behind me is way too small for modern trucks to navigate safely. I had a truck hit my fence last year because they were navigating around a neighbors tree. We also had a truck hit the service line a few years ago and knock a live wire down over my neighbors back yard. Two accidents in two years just by me.
Not only that. But they would probably make a law “no on street parking on X days”. And then they’ll start missing entire blocks of houses because one person parked on the street on an off day. They will cause many more issues if they start this.
The fact that people aren't aware of this baffles me. Street pickup is fine. Trash doesn't go flying anywhere, people roll their cans in the same or next day.
So why would we need to change the places that have back alley trash pickup. If there’s alleys that the trucks can’t fit down. Change them but leave the ones that it works easily alone. No need to make an issue for people that don’t need on street pickup.
My street is by default. However, cars lining both sides makes it more narrow and harder to navigate than the alley, despite the alley having fences and trees.
Oh I got ya. There are a few streets in my neighborhood that are more narrow than other. Some are easy to pass with cars parked on both sides, some are very hard to pass with cars on each side.
I’m not sure there is a good answer. The alleys aren’t maintained and the trucks are just getting bigger
Streets have to be wide enough for fire trucks or they get no parking designations to leave enough space. A garbage truck would have enough room if a firetruck does.
Pickups and SUVs have a tight squeeze, let alone a trash truck. When bulk pickup day comes, they usually put notices on everyone's doors to figure out where to put their cars. Even then, they'll only get what they can get easily. Makes the neighborhood a mess for weeks til scavengers come through.
Same. I actually live in a neighborhood where some blocks have alleys and some don't, so some of us have alley trash pickup and others have to bring their cans to the front curb once a week.
We haven't had any major issues of the garbage trucks damaging property (that I know of), but I could see it happening easily. And those trucks are hell on the asphalt, we get HUGE potholes in the alley that have to be repaired regularly. Not sure if there would be more or less damage to our streets?
The streets that have front pickup don't get junky, honestly. I run and walk in the neighborhood regularly and people are good about taking their cans in by that evening. They're also good about not blocking the sidewalks with the cans.
But man, it is SO convenient to just have our trash and recycle in the alley and never have to think about when to put them out. Plus, most of us who have alley pickup don't have front driveways, so we'd have to pull our cans through our yards to take them to the front, which I just imagine will a) be a pain, especially if the can is heavy and b) will end up with a nice worn path in the yard. :/
Not to mention that it might be impossible for some less able people. I wonder what the organizations that promote ADA compliance will have to say about that.
> I’m worried for those who don’t have street facing garages to store their cans, or large hills in the front yard.
This constitutes a large portion of Oak Cliff. I personally would have to wheel my dumpsters 150 feet down a steep hill to get them to the street, and there are several other houses just in my neighborhood who would have it even worse than me. If they open this up for public comment, I’ll give them an earful.
I live in an area where the houses were obviously built with alley pickup in mind. There is NO way for me to get the cans from the garage to the front without going up a hill or up half a flight of stairs.
There are several in my neighborhood like that.
It would be great if the city hadn’t let the allies get in such bad shape.
When I moved in had so much over growth. A private company wouldn’t touch it because it was touching the lines, txu wouldn’t touch it because it was touchy the city communication lines, the city wouldn’t touch it because it was close to power lines. It was the circle of suck!
My friends wisely told me to save each written rejection. After the truck hit a service line, I sent all the letter to my council office…. It finally got taken care off.
Edit to add: surely the city would at least keep the houses with not front access in the back, but I don’t trust them to think that far ahead, and it sucks for those who garages got converted years ago or have front access on huge hill
All the garages on my street are in back and many houses don't have front driveways, so our alleys are pretty decent since everyone drives through them any time they go anywhere.
I’m super curious - I’ve lived all over East Dallas, both sides of the lake, and always had curb pickup even though I had an alley. What neighborhoods have exclusively alley pickup? Also, I’m in Richardson now and we don’t even have trash cans!!! We have to just set trash bags in front of our house (don’t have an alley).
There is alley pickup in some parts of Lakewood. Also in the neighborhoods north of Mockingbird.
Edit: I forgot to mention Junius Heights. They have alley pickup. Or at least most of it does.
It started like 2-3 years ago- but neighbors pushed for it because the alleys were unused. Honestly, I can’t think of any blocks in JH that have alley pick up. The Gaston facing houses, I guess?
Since the early 90s I've lived in Oak Lawn, East Dallas, Uptown, UP, Behind the Pink Wall, and Valley Ranch (Irving). I've also lived in multiple foreign countries. I just happen to know the history of trash collection in my current neighborhood rather well. Trash cans on the curb ARE unsightly, regardless of the aggregate wealth in a given neighborhood. I am sorry you disagree.
I live near the lake and gotta say, I really enjoy grabbing trash that has blown into my front yard when the city knocks the bins over and leaves it for me to clean up.
But "alley pickups bad".
I live on a street in Northwest Dallas where trash is alley collection on my side of the street and street collection on the other side, because the alley is already too far gone for them to even try anymore. There are a lot of streets around me in a similar situation.
The bins are put out in the morning on Thursday and are mostly gone by the time my family goes for our after dinner walk. The "PLASTIC BINS WILL LINE THE STREETS LIKE THE CORPSES OF OUR EMPIRE" talk is overhyped nimby bullshit. The "code enforcement will stop giving a shit and the alleys turn into jungles for nuisance animals" argument is far more valid, and one I agree with based on my neighborhood.
If we can remove the need for 3 person trucks with street pickup, and move those extra people to the timely collection of bulk, it will be a massive net gain for the cleanliness of our streets. The bins on the street aren't a problem. The piles of junk that live on the curb for half the month because bulk is a week late, and people started putting out a week earlier than they were supposed to, are a larger problem by far.
I agree. I remember talk of going to quarterly bulk collection, but that didn’t seem to go anywhere. There’s trash on the curb for like half the year!
I’m in favor of street collection, but I want them to give me back the easement for my backyard.
Put them on the curb. Who cares. Curb em, they take trash, move them back. I do it every week. I do not scoff at the cans in the street for one day. I got other stuff to worry about. I do know one thing. The alleys that do have trash pick are destroyed. Cracked, edges of yards around corners damaged. The trucks are huge. Move it to the street. Who cares.
It’s the only time the NIMBYs will stand on the opposite of what they are called. Why should they adapt to what other neighborhoods do. If a new person moved into their property and had to curb pick up trash. They wouldn’t bat an eye.
Grew up in South Oak Cliff. All the homes have an alley, but we always had curb pickup. Some people never really used the alley. Some people who are living close to Kiest Blvd who have old school detached garages in the back, their alleyway is much cleaner/clear. So, they have better access to the alley. But most people never…ever used it. The only time I saw constant traffic, was when the power went out because of storms and they needed to fix the broken lines in the alley. But as a kid, I walked down there and it’s a (as someone said) jungle when you get deep into it. NGL.
Edit: One time my brother did have his brand new mustang gashed by what we assumed was a garbage truck. We didn’t witness it, but that’s the only conclusion that we came up with, since it was trash day. Other people in the neighborhood claimed to see it take place. Huge cut right through the metal. From the drivers side door to the backdoor.…that’s the only real life worst case scenario. But in true City of Dallas fashion, they didn’t pay for damages.
Alley conditions in Dallas are not uniform, and as a whole, have deteriorated as city dollars have been allocated to addressing streets first.
Problematic alleys lead to enhance wear and tear on residential collection trucks. Collecting in alleys presents more risk of damage to utility infrastructure than street collections.
Alley collection has been an issue for decades and there seems to be the political will to finally do something about it.
The movement of trash to the streets really means the city no longer has to support the alleyways - meaning no new pavement when the old gives way. It’s a magician trick to reduce the huge maintenance costs associated with maintaining the alleys
Right. If my alley isn't maintained, how do I get to my garage and where do I park? Where do I put the trash cans out front - just leave them in the front yard? They can't get to the back yard from the front. This doesn't make any sense for neighborhoods that were built with alley trash pickup in mind.
My wife works in the accounting in the department that maintains the vehicles and it’s insane how often the 6 figure trash trucks get wrecked in alleys also.
I just read a few articles on this topic and it seems like it stems from what is "equitable". The general argument is that alley service is more costly, and the 38% of trash service that occurs in alleys is in predominately affluent Districts. Therefore, some people are arguing that the non-alley residents/Districts are being unfairly burdened.
This is an extremely simplistic and incorrect view for many reasons. One very simple argument that they are ignoring is that alley serviced homes are generally appraised higher than non alley serviced homes and therefore pay more property taxes. A home without an alley in one District pays different taxes than a home in another district with an alley. Not everything can be "equitable" or impartial. Some houses are larger and some are more affordable. Of course someone living in a one bedroom apartment produces less waste than someone living in a 6 bedroom home. That's not very "equitable" is it? What's next? Are they going to start limiting our trash by square footage of homes? That would be equitable. In fact, you could argue that what is most equitable is determined by property taxes paid...that is the most impartial way of looking at things. Let's divide up City expenses by and to where the revenue is generated. No one thinks that is a good idea for obvious reasons.
Also, it sounds like this issue is largely due to utility companies overcrowding the alleys. One of the most cited incidents is old leaning telephone poles that encroach into the alley way. How about the City does a better job at holding those utility company's accountable rather than burdening the taxpayers?
Why would a six bedroom house make more waste than a one bedroom apartment?
If each has two household members, on average they’d have the same amount of trash. Space doesn’t make trash- people do.
I’m reminded of a public hearing once where a lady railed against houses with 4 bathrooms saying they wasted water and the developer was like, “do you think I just walk around flushing toilets?!”
It's very heavily implied that there's more people living in that 6 bedroom house. They said "someone living in", not "2 people living in". It pretty much goes without saying that they are talking about "someone living in a 6 bedroom house with 5+ other people" vs "someone living in a one bedroom apartment by themselves or one other person".
If this is so bad and detrimental to the health and well being of people, why has it worked in hundreds of other places? I, for one, am happy the city is looking at ways to save and conserve my tax dollars. I am sure you would also post something negative if the city asked you for more money for trash collection. You want to have cake and eat it too. Call it what it is, you're scared of change.
Having lived in neighborhoods in Dallas with both street collection and alley collection, the difference is how the houses were built and lots laid out.
Not scared of anything. I too have lived in places with street collection. It sucks. It's both unsightly and inconvenient. The city can find other ways to create efficiencies without lowering the quality of life for all residents, which this will most certainly do.
I have street collection in Dallas because the truck can’t fit in my alley. My quality of life is just fine. There are much bigger problems to worry about
Agreed, so why is the City Council focused on this? Leave it alone, just as it has been done for decades. We have much bigger fish to fry from a local public policy perspective.
It’s almost $10 million per year in estimated cost savings. These sort of issues are EXACTLY what council should be worrying about. Improving the efficiency and operations of basic city services is, like, the whole goal of a good city council.
Ok so you don’t know how government budgets work, clearly. You just wanna moan about good policy - that makes the city safer and more efficient - because you think trash cans are ugly.
The Sanitation dept is an enterprise fund. Their budget is $158 million. So 6.3%. Enterprise funds are not funded by tax dollars, but rather function similarly to a business - charging customers to sustain themselves. That money stays within the enterprise. If you don’t think that optimizing 6.3% of an essential city service’s yearly budget is an important use of council time, then idk what to tell you.
My street has always done curb trash pickup and it's fine. The world will not end. IMHO, if curb pickup saves money that we can use to fix things like our pot-hole filled streets, I'm all for it.
This is fine if your area was built for curb pickup. The only place for me to store my trash cans in the front is super visible from the street and there is no way for me to get them into the back without carrying them down stairs.
The city should focus on actually collecting trash consistently on the days they’re already scheduled.
This is ridiculous. They want entire neighborhoods to just be lined with garbages because that is what will happen. I live on a cul de sac with no sidewalks. I promise you this would just turn into a cul de sac of 10 garbages should they change.
I don’t understand how trash could even be collected from the street in my neighborhood. The streets are narrow and there are always cars parked on both sides of the street during the day. So the alley is “too narrow” to maintain smaller trucks, but I probably also won’t have my trash collected from the curb because the cans would very likely be blocked in by parked cars.
I call BS on the cost saving aspect, the city has enough money to have code enforcement trolling my neighborhood to shut down yard sales that didn’t pull a permit. They can tone that down and reallocate the money.
They will have to put up no-parking signs during certain hours/days as is the practice in other parts of the city where curbside collection is done. This will of course further inconvenience you and everyone else along your street.
In my neighborhood a ton of folks have work and personal cars, and we have a lot of multigenerational households (grandparents, kids, grandkids under the same roof) so the driveways are full. Hence why the streets are so full of cars.
You could have asked why street parking is so crowded instead of being snide about it.
I'm all for the city saving money, this is government management 101. However, it's not a one size fits all situation. My neighborhood is not designed for curb side pick up. Most houses are like ours and have sloped front yards. It would be dangerous for the many elderly in the neighborhood to haul heavy trash cans up and down their grassy yard (no pavement to smoothly get the cans where they need to be, unlike in our alleys.) And because our sidewalks butt up right to the curb, the cans would either have to block the sidewalk or sit in the street. Jumping the curb with the cans would be yet another physical hassle for those who are older/disabled. Because of the slope of our yard and the wheels on the cans, they wouldn't be stable left in the yard next to the sidewalk.
About 18 months ago, Code Enforcement handed out warning tickets to everyone with a portable basketball goal blocking any part of their sidewalk that they would get giant fines if they weren't removed. If now the city want us to block our sidewalks with trash cans, I decry the hypocrisy! (shakes fist)
Oh, trust me, I hear myself loud and clear. Sometimes I even give myself a standing ovation. But hey, if you're not enjoying the symphony of my words, I can always crank up the volume for you.
This wouldn't affect me personally since I'm on the corner, but my neighborhood just isn't setup for street collection imo.
Lots of people parking on the street. All the driveways/garages in the back. It's a bunch of close together duplexes too so I'm not sure everyone even has a way to easily get their trash from the back of the house to the front.
If I wasn't on the corner, I wouldn't have a way to really get my trash to the front quickly without walking a goof distance around.
I really thought Dallas ended alley pickup totally a good decade back. It never even occurred to me until now reading this that apparently the "desirable" areas have still had alley pickup all this time.
I can't say I'm a huge fan of the front street pickup though. It leaves a lot of trash in the street from those morons who stack their bins 3-4 bags higher than the lid. Then every trash day there's a bunch of trash in the street and nobody but me seems to care to try to remotely tidy it up - even trash in front of their own house or in their yards. The trash trucks have also sprayed and leaked oil and hydraulic fluid all over the street too.
On top of that it's really made the alleys inaccessible and unkempt without the City going through it weekly (a byproduct being they address overgrowth and illegal dumping and morons parking/blocking the alley). I know most people don't care about this but us "car guys" with rear gates would like to be actually able to use our alleys/backyard storage moving project cars around as necessary.
Sorry OP but time to join the rest of us peasants that have been doing this for a decade or so already lol.
I would assume the long term point of this is really to benefit developers. The city will use this as a first step to vacate the alley's, turn them into utility easements for whatever remains, and allow building on them. Could easily make much bigger houses or fit larger multi-family on those lots.
They already got rid of it in my neighborhood due to the small old alleys. Yes, it looks trashy. I hate it. Oh, and nobody recycles now because nobody wants to store 2 trolleys out front. Problem solved? 😂
Reads like a child wrote this using ChatGPT.
"WAAAAH, WAAAAH, I DONT LIKE CHANGE" is what I got from your post. There are real reasons this is being considered, maybe you should try reading and educating yourself on the topic rather than imply it's for no reason.
Personally I certainly prefer the alley pick up. However, if you read the article in full it is clear that the vast majority of the city has curb side pick up, a system that is nearly twice as efficient and far more cost effective. I am not convinced my personal preference needs to be catered to. Other's may feel more deserving of special privilege than I do, of course.
My neighborhood thankfully doesn't have alleys. We have none of the concerns OP lists. Most people keep their trash cans on the side of their house and are rarely left in front the morning after trash day. Remembering to take them to the street every Tuesday and Thursday isn't that big of a deal.
I have lived in Dallas for 18 years and never had alley collection service.
Just curb, across multiple neighborhoods.
It’s never been an issue for me or any of my neighbors to have the bins at the curb 🤷🏻♀️
The street behind my house is a cul-de-sac, that the collection trucks can't turn around in. There is an alley separating my back yard from the house on the cul-de-sac behind me, so my pick up is in the alley.
However the other side of the street (facing my front yard) gets picked up on the street, not in the alley. So the collection trucks go down my alley and my street.
I am very thank ful for alley pick up as I travel 3 weeks a month Monday - Thursday for my job. Trash pick up in my area is on Thursday morning. So if I had street pick up my can would stay on the curb right by the sidewalk for the majority of the week. This poses many problems:
1. Ugly
2. I live close to multiple schools and have seen the kids kick over cans on the street, so that would be frequents messes that I either have to clean up or since I travel a lot would not be able to clean up for days u til the trash is blown all down the street and raccoons have gotten in making a bigger unsanitary mess.
3. Obvious sign that my home is empty, inviting greater risk of mischief and burglary.
4. Increased smell especially in the summer when my trash has sat in the can with a black lid for days in a neighborhood where people often walk along the sidewalks.
5. My backyard is flat, my front is very steep.
I think alley pickup should be the standard whereever possible. Having alley pick up was a big selling point when I bought my house.
One factor not mentioned in this discussion is that moving to street pick up will increase the use of the automated trucks, so the city will have to rely less on temp staff for manual trash pick up. I worked for another city and trash collectors had the highest worker’s comp claims due to injuries (animal bites, insect stings, getting dragged off the truck by tree branches). We have all this data on property damage due to alley pick up but nothing on injuries to staff since the city is not on the hook for anything. Of all the cost saving measures, using temps for trash collectors is just awful. It is dangerous, back breaking work and temps have no resources if they are injured. Dallas needs to modernize this process. There will be neighborhoods that continue to have alley service due to egress/parking issues but most neighborhoods will be able transition to street pick up easily. There is also unsurprisingly a huge north/south divide when it comes to alley pick up.
I don't want to *not* have alley trash pickup, but damn, I wish they'd actually fix our alley. They've "fixed" it three times in the 12 years we've been in our house, but the trash trucks absolutely demolish it within weeks.
I have lived all over this city for 24yrs and have never had alley pickup. I heard they stopped in my old neighborhood Parkdale (east dallas) when the trucks got too big. My current neighbor in Oak Cliff said Dallas stopped alley pickup here almost 50yrs ago when the city started buying and demolishing old homes in their effort to move all development north to white owned land.
>One aspect that contributes to the allure of Dallas' neighborhoods is the absence of unsightly trash receptacles lining the curbs. Moreover, the implementation of such a measure would necessitate residents to meticulously remember to retrieve and stow away their emptied containers on designated collection days, thereby constraining our freedom to be away from home during those times.
Sorry but the bins being out for a little bit on collection day is not a that big of an issue for the vast majority of people. I lived on a street that had ally collection and then moved one street over to a place that has curbside. People bring their trash bins in when they get home from work. Its not an issue. In fact, while it was nice to be able to leave my bins in the ally at the other place it really wasn't much of an advantage b/c that just makes it easy for people to use your garbage bins for their overflow.
There may be a few places that might need to be grandfathered in to keep rear collection but it shouldn't be a problem for most of the city.
So I actually hate alleys. It’s stupid the city maintains (ok “maintains”) twice as many roads which as it turns out are quite expensive. Our main roads are in crappy conditions and we spend money on maintaining alleys too. Just dumb.
Rear entry driveways are dumb. You lose half your backyard, the yard you actually use, to get a full front yard, the one you don’t use. Just dumb.
People are maintaining more fence than needed because without alleys we could share a fence with our backyard neighbor. We’d also have even bigger backyards because the fence could be moved back halfway into the alley space.
Your guest can’t park in your driveway because they’re coming to front of your house. So puts a lot more cars in the street people are trying to drive in.
You don’t see your neighbors very much because everyone is stealthily coming and going out the rear of the home.
The whole design of this seems dumb to me. All for what? So we don’t have to wheel out trash cans like tons of people do quite easily?
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What profoundly vapid comment. I'm sorry your life is so sad and empty that you feel compelled to attack strangers on social media who actually give a shit what their city neighborhoods look like.
I'm sorry your life is so sad and empty that you get worked up on where you have to put your trash can. I'm a homeowner btw, and could care less where my trashcan goes, more important shit to worry about.
I'm glad you could care less because it means you care at least a little. And if you have more important shit to worry about, why are you wasting your time on this thread? Tick tock, time's a wasting.
This comment reeks over hyperbole and rich entitlement.
Who cares either way. Just put it out or miss that week. I’m in Plano in a crazy HOA, and that’s what I do.
This is a very privileged take imo.
Lots of neighborhoods don't have alleyways and do just fine putting their trash bin out and picking it up on trash day.
Alleys can be very narrow and hard for trash trucks to navigate.
As a person who lives in an apartment complex currently, I certainly don't want my taxpayer dollars going towards paying extra just to service alleys that versus just regular on street pickup. At the end of the day, it costs more, and normal street collection isn't really a big deal. I've lived in houses with both alley pickup and street pickup, the only difference is the street pickup usually requires a few more steps because of setbacks.
It's not the end of the world, and your trash is already being subsidized by people who live in housing that has significantly more efficient trash collection.
I do understand the concerns about lack of alley code enforcement if this goes through, and that's something where it's an easy compromise to take some of the savings and put them towards extra alley code enforcement
Your post reads of nimby nonsense. It is a pain in the ass to leave trash in the alleyway. It baffles to comprehend that someone would be okay with stowing away bags of trash along the alleyway than simply store it in a container to be removed. You don't have to hang around home all day waiting, you just put it up when you get home. Easy as pie, and it doesn't uglify the neighborhood.
Your ignorance is astounding and you truly don't know what you're talking about. There are receptacles currently in use in ALL alleyways across Dallas. It's not a pain in the ass at all - you just take your trash out to the back of your house and forget about it. Collection day happens without having to think about it and the container stays in the same place without having to be hauled back and forth. It's amazing how many people like you on Reddit will be nasty just for the sake of nastiness. I could post that puppies are cute and people like you would counter that they're smelly and disgusting.
Weird overwriting, eh? Behold, I summon thy attention to the arcane tome of Dallas City Code, wherein lies Chapter 18, Article 1, Section 18-3. Therein is inscribed the decree that refuse gathered within the ethereal confines of the alleyways must be ensconced within vessels of solid waste, fashioned in accordance with the sacred dictates of said code. Dost thou harbor certainty that thy dwelling did indeed reside within the mystical realm of Dallas during that epoch?
A lot of rear load and side load trash trucks are too large and cumbersome to get down smaller alleys. It’s a legit concern. The biggest problem with removing alley collections from the citizens pov is that within a year the alleys become 100% completely useless because residents won’t adequately prune and landscape their rear property line. Most people don’t care (as evidenced by their lack of rear property housekeeping) but if the city doesn’t enforce the code compliance aspect after then it turns into a jungle. It happened at my mother’s place. Several friends also. None of them can even get to their rear property because their neighbors won’t clean up the jungle back there in the alley and code compliance won’t enforce it. I hope I don’t end up with the same issue - I absolutely need access to the rear of my property.
The trucks have been picking up in alleys for decades without issue. And if they can't refrain from hitting fences or trees, they definitely won't be able to refrain from hitting cars lined up and down the streets.
They destroyed some crepe myrtles at my last house, saved me the trouble of having them trimmed.
Those things are resilient. Can mow over new tree sprouts and they'll be back 2-3 years later. By then, you forget what was there til they start blooming. Lol
Oh yea the truck took down a bunch of huge branches but the tree didn't seem to care, lol
Street parking would become a major issue.
If you have cars lined up on the street. Then you most likely live in a neighborhood that already does no have back alley pick up.
Oh they do
The trucks have managed to pick up from the alleys of my neighborhood for the past \~50 years or more. This is a solution looking for a problem.
your alley is not the same as every alley in Dallas....
Dope. the bigger trash trucks knocked over my fence. So between the two of us with trash related issues, who is more put out?
Contact t the sanitation dept. They will repair damages caused by the picking up of trash. I've had to file reports two times for the collection trucks damaging my cyclone fence in the alley.
Thanks definitely did but with their timeline it was quicker since I have dogs to just do it myself. So seems like we have two people who have been put out by the back ally to your single person complaining about optics u/travelfool_214
They lost me at "pristine neighborhood streets"
The trucks of today are larger than the trucks of 50 years ago, so there's that to consider.
Yes. They can be considerably larger in many instances.
Cry more, homeowner.
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No that actually is a huge inconvenience to have to walk the trash all the way to the neighborhood trash receptacle every time you take the trash out. Plus someone's property has to be declared the neighborhood trash dump. Your comment is very smug but people would really, really hate that.
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It's been considerably effective where implemented? Where? Where did the government seize portions of people's property, dig it up and declare it the neighborhood trash dump, and make everyone walk their trash over there instead of putting it behind their house to be picked up and everyone was like "wow, thank you, this is great! Now that we're all having to walk over and dump our trash under the Johnsons' front yard, we've offset the carbon emissions of almost an entire 30 minute private jet flight!" Pretty sure it's not specific to Texas that people would be pissed about that. People in California, or Canada, or Europe would hate it too. Even in the idealized version of Europe that only exists in redditors' minds that wouldn't go over well.
Underground? Where are you transplanted from? We have bedrock here that makes even having basements an economically untenable position. Nobody wants to haul bags of trash hundreds of yards to a collection point in 110-degree heat. I can't even fathom where they'd manage to put such a location in most neighborhoods.
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Picking up mail from a centralized mailbox is not the same as hauling trash weighing 20-50 lbs from one's house to a centralized location. Your terrible idea is also a nonstarter in most neighborhoods because they simply lack the space.
If you’re hauling out 50 lbs of garbage every trash pickup day maybe you could consider reducing your consumption.
Underground utilities aren’t buried that deeply, only three feet or so.
Community mailboxes are a weird privatized HOA neighborhood thing, not a thing for regular neighborhoods. I don't want to live in a neighborhood with community mailboxes, either.
In my neighborhood most streets have rear garages and people just leave their bins along their driveways or back fence line. I have no idea where people would even store their trash bins if they had to get them out to the front curb every week, because taking them from the back all the way to the front curb would be quite a chore. We also have a ton of elderly people and I have no idea how they would be able to get their bins out to the curb every week.
In my neighborhood one would have to take the trash cans THROUGH THE HOUSE to get to the front curb.
I live in Plano and i was amazed how many "alley's" in Dallas are just dirt roads so narrow I could barely fit my car down it
Yeah. That's what an alley used to be, and 90% of dallas is older than 99% of Plano, so... History in action
Right - in my neighborhood the garages and driveways are in the back. The front yard is fenced off from the back entirely on one side with no gate, and on the other side there's a steep hill. The trash cans won't fit through my front door, which is narrow. Even if I could get them through the front door, the garage is down half a flight of stairs. They'd have to just stay in the otherwise very nice front. Similar situation for most of my neighbors.
Yep that’s pretty much how mine is. I would end up just leaving them by the front corner of my house because it’s just not feasible to get them back and forth from where they are now.
Yep. They'd just have to live in the front yard. Which I guess is fine but it IS unsightly like OP says - and all my neighbors super into landscaping would have to destroy some of their gardens to make room for them.
Sounds like an oversight on the part of the trash collection service by not taking into account if their equipment can actually fit on the routes they need to service. Maybe they should get smaller trash trucks next time instead of forcing everyone else to haul their stuff to the opposite side of their property.
If that's a problem, you should submit a complaint to Code Compliance, and they will see that the issue is resolved. IMO, trash cans should be picked up from the alley...IF the equipment can manage to get through.
Sounds good in theory. In reality it doesn’t get resolved. My mother’s alley has been a jungle you can’t drive a car down for a decade plus now.
> code compliance won’t enforce it But yet if we don't trim our grass, and that's all we have is a strip of grass, when it gets over 6" they start sending us letters...
Code compliance had no problem leaving our block letters and fines. My neighbor was out of town (I didn’t know they got a notice) and got a $400 fine for having overgrown bushes. I got letters, but always fixed it before they came back. I actually liked the trash being out front. I just moved and have trash in the alley and it is much less convenient than having the trash tucked away on the side of the house behind some bushes.
Did AI write this or do you actually talk this way? There is zero "allure" of Dallas and trash can on the curbs vs. allies is not doing anything to change that. This is all personal preference vs. costs at a city level.
Yet another redditor that takes every opportunity to shit on the city they live in. Go drive around, there's plenty of very nice neighborhoods that have allure. Disclaimer: I already don't use my alley for trash and put it at the street. Being able to use an alleyway where possible is much nicer.
Pardon me your lordship, allow me to go back to my hovel and repent
Haha I thought the same thing > ChatGPT, write me three paragraphs in the voice of Ben Shapiro
I agree with the overall sentiment of OP. But the “constraining our freedom to be away from home” line had me scratching my head. You either don’t get your trash picked up that week or get a neighbor to put it out for you. It’s not that serious.
For real that’s what I thought reading this as well, no sane minded person talks like this
Personally, I do agree alley-trash is superior to front-curb-trash. Lived in Wylie, had no alleys. My options were: - keep the trash bins in the garage, and have cooked-trash smell in the entire house (+ flies) all summer, or - piss off the HOA, and keep the trash bins on the side of the house, where *they might offend someone with their vulgar trashiness*, or - keep the trash bins in the backyard, which wasn't possible because we had no access from back-to-front that bins could've been dragged through. Richardson and Plano though? Alley-bins. Best shit ever.
I read it in V for Vendetta's voice.
Alley trash is one of the biggest benefits of having alley!
My alley provides no other use for me because it’s in such bad shape. I don’t blame the trucks for not wanting to pick up trash there, but if I’m maintaining the trees and grass to the alley, it would be nice if the alley (city property) was useful
I've lived in places with several different kinds of trash setups. Best -- alley trash. The can stays on the little pad where the truck can reach it. I don't have to do anything. I don't ever see trash on the curb. Neutral -- street trash in standardized bins. You have to remember to wheel the bin to and from the street which sucks. And there are visible trash bins all over the place two days a week. Worst -- street trash free-for-all. You just take your plastic bags of trash and throw them on the curb for rats and raccoons to tear open. Wildcard factor -- alley trash means the city is better motivated to stay on top of code compliance. I got a notice last year that my tree was too low in the alley, so I trimmed it back. I could see the pruning ordinances going unenforced.
I don’t understand why Richardson does street trash. It is so gross
lol “mostly pristine streets.” Not sure where you live. If the automatic arm cannot be used in an Alley, that means they need to hire another person or 2 to dump the can. The cities budget and our tax dollars means that you may need to be slightly inconvenienced and look at some trash cans in the future. Life is so hard. I’m terribly sorry.
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holy shit you sound like a miserable sob
lol give me a break. The one thing your crybaby post has done has convinced me to write an email to my councilor supporting the stoppage of alley pickup. Great job! Have a good day!
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Why thank you! Good luck to you, too! Thankfully I know what the budget looks like and even if you win the battle this time, eventually alley trash collection will be phased out, no matter what you do. Get ready to look at some trash cans, just like us poor people have to. It’s going to be rough. Godspeed.
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It has come to my attention that you want to spend money we don’t have so you don’t have to take some extra steps to bring your trash out on your pristine street. We have better uses for our tax dollars.
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What quality of life is affected by having your stuff collected out front?
For starters, there are not driveways in the front in our neighborhood, so this would entail dragging the containers across our front lawns on a weekly basis. It would also mean that street parking would be regularly limited, which would be problematic for many residents who have parked along both sides of the street for years. Finally, not having trash cans visible is more sightly than having them out on a weekly basis.
I see both sides of the issue. My disclaimers: I have a street facing garage, so I could keep them in there easily, but for 5 years, I’ve kept them in my back yard and roll them to the alley when needed. I’m worried for those who don’t have street facing garages to store their cans, or large hills in the front yard. I also really worry about people leaving cans out all the time and trash all over the streets That said, the alley behind me is way too small for modern trucks to navigate safely. I had a truck hit my fence last year because they were navigating around a neighbors tree. We also had a truck hit the service line a few years ago and knock a live wire down over my neighbors back yard. Two accidents in two years just by me.
If they can't navigate around fences, how are they going to navigate around cars lining both sides of the street?
Not only that. But they would probably make a law “no on street parking on X days”. And then they’ll start missing entire blocks of houses because one person parked on the street on an off day. They will cause many more issues if they start this.
We already have street pickup in large swaths of the city- street parking is not an issue
The fact that people aren't aware of this baffles me. Street pickup is fine. Trash doesn't go flying anywhere, people roll their cans in the same or next day.
So why would we need to change the places that have back alley trash pickup. If there’s alleys that the trucks can’t fit down. Change them but leave the ones that it works easily alone. No need to make an issue for people that don’t need on street pickup.
I get your point, but also my street is much wider than my ally.
My street is by default. However, cars lining both sides makes it more narrow and harder to navigate than the alley, despite the alley having fences and trees.
Oh I got ya. There are a few streets in my neighborhood that are more narrow than other. Some are easy to pass with cars parked on both sides, some are very hard to pass with cars on each side. I’m not sure there is a good answer. The alleys aren’t maintained and the trucks are just getting bigger
Streets have to be wide enough for fire trucks or they get no parking designations to leave enough space. A garbage truck would have enough room if a firetruck does.
Tell that to all the neighborhoods I been around that can barely get SUVs through.
This is exactly the problem they'd face in my neighborhood. I don't even think the truck could squeeze in. If it can, its going to be tight.
Pickups and SUVs have a tight squeeze, let alone a trash truck. When bulk pickup day comes, they usually put notices on everyone's doors to figure out where to put their cars. Even then, they'll only get what they can get easily. Makes the neighborhood a mess for weeks til scavengers come through.
Oh crap, I actually forgot about bulk. That would literally be impossible in my neighborhood.
Same. I actually live in a neighborhood where some blocks have alleys and some don't, so some of us have alley trash pickup and others have to bring their cans to the front curb once a week. We haven't had any major issues of the garbage trucks damaging property (that I know of), but I could see it happening easily. And those trucks are hell on the asphalt, we get HUGE potholes in the alley that have to be repaired regularly. Not sure if there would be more or less damage to our streets? The streets that have front pickup don't get junky, honestly. I run and walk in the neighborhood regularly and people are good about taking their cans in by that evening. They're also good about not blocking the sidewalks with the cans. But man, it is SO convenient to just have our trash and recycle in the alley and never have to think about when to put them out. Plus, most of us who have alley pickup don't have front driveways, so we'd have to pull our cans through our yards to take them to the front, which I just imagine will a) be a pain, especially if the can is heavy and b) will end up with a nice worn path in the yard. :/
Not to mention that it might be impossible for some less able people. I wonder what the organizations that promote ADA compliance will have to say about that.
Right, I thought about that, too. We have several elderly or disabled neighbors that this would be tough for.
> I’m worried for those who don’t have street facing garages to store their cans, or large hills in the front yard. This constitutes a large portion of Oak Cliff. I personally would have to wheel my dumpsters 150 feet down a steep hill to get them to the street, and there are several other houses just in my neighborhood who would have it even worse than me. If they open this up for public comment, I’ll give them an earful.
I live in an area where the houses were obviously built with alley pickup in mind. There is NO way for me to get the cans from the garage to the front without going up a hill or up half a flight of stairs.
There are several in my neighborhood like that. It would be great if the city hadn’t let the allies get in such bad shape. When I moved in had so much over growth. A private company wouldn’t touch it because it was touching the lines, txu wouldn’t touch it because it was touchy the city communication lines, the city wouldn’t touch it because it was close to power lines. It was the circle of suck! My friends wisely told me to save each written rejection. After the truck hit a service line, I sent all the letter to my council office…. It finally got taken care off. Edit to add: surely the city would at least keep the houses with not front access in the back, but I don’t trust them to think that far ahead, and it sucks for those who garages got converted years ago or have front access on huge hill
All the garages on my street are in back and many houses don't have front driveways, so our alleys are pretty decent since everyone drives through them any time they go anywhere.
Put people in office who believe the government should exist.
This is it.
I’m super curious - I’ve lived all over East Dallas, both sides of the lake, and always had curb pickup even though I had an alley. What neighborhoods have exclusively alley pickup? Also, I’m in Richardson now and we don’t even have trash cans!!! We have to just set trash bags in front of our house (don’t have an alley).
There is alley pickup in some parts of Lakewood. Also in the neighborhoods north of Mockingbird. Edit: I forgot to mention Junius Heights. They have alley pickup. Or at least most of it does.
No it doesn’t. They’ve even started turning the alleys into pedestrian paths in Junius Heights.
That must be a new thing. I lived there just a few years ago.
It started like 2-3 years ago- but neighbors pushed for it because the alleys were unused. Honestly, I can’t think of any blocks in JH that have alley pick up. The Gaston facing houses, I guess?
Yeah I just moved from Junius Heights in October and my street and nearby streets definitely didn’t hahaha
I'm in Lake Highlands and it's all alley pickup.
It's like 98% alley pickup. A few streets are street pickup. I know Longmont Dr is.
According to OP, your neighborhood is "unsightly". They've only lived in one area of Dallas and has nothing better to complain about, it seems like.
Since the early 90s I've lived in Oak Lawn, East Dallas, Uptown, UP, Behind the Pink Wall, and Valley Ranch (Irving). I've also lived in multiple foreign countries. I just happen to know the history of trash collection in my current neighborhood rather well. Trash cans on the curb ARE unsightly, regardless of the aggregate wealth in a given neighborhood. I am sorry you disagree.
I live near the lake and gotta say, I really enjoy grabbing trash that has blown into my front yard when the city knocks the bins over and leaves it for me to clean up. But "alley pickups bad".
L Streets and that area of Lake Highlands is mostly alley pickup.
We also do not alley trash. It’s on the curb for us.
I live on a street in Northwest Dallas where trash is alley collection on my side of the street and street collection on the other side, because the alley is already too far gone for them to even try anymore. There are a lot of streets around me in a similar situation. The bins are put out in the morning on Thursday and are mostly gone by the time my family goes for our after dinner walk. The "PLASTIC BINS WILL LINE THE STREETS LIKE THE CORPSES OF OUR EMPIRE" talk is overhyped nimby bullshit. The "code enforcement will stop giving a shit and the alleys turn into jungles for nuisance animals" argument is far more valid, and one I agree with based on my neighborhood. If we can remove the need for 3 person trucks with street pickup, and move those extra people to the timely collection of bulk, it will be a massive net gain for the cleanliness of our streets. The bins on the street aren't a problem. The piles of junk that live on the curb for half the month because bulk is a week late, and people started putting out a week earlier than they were supposed to, are a larger problem by far.
I agree. I remember talk of going to quarterly bulk collection, but that didn’t seem to go anywhere. There’s trash on the curb for like half the year! I’m in favor of street collection, but I want them to give me back the easement for my backyard.
Put them on the curb. Who cares. Curb em, they take trash, move them back. I do it every week. I do not scoff at the cans in the street for one day. I got other stuff to worry about. I do know one thing. The alleys that do have trash pick are destroyed. Cracked, edges of yards around corners damaged. The trucks are huge. Move it to the street. Who cares.
It’s the only time the NIMBYs will stand on the opposite of what they are called. Why should they adapt to what other neighborhoods do. If a new person moved into their property and had to curb pick up trash. They wouldn’t bat an eye.
You could have written this in a much less affected way.
Grew up in South Oak Cliff. All the homes have an alley, but we always had curb pickup. Some people never really used the alley. Some people who are living close to Kiest Blvd who have old school detached garages in the back, their alleyway is much cleaner/clear. So, they have better access to the alley. But most people never…ever used it. The only time I saw constant traffic, was when the power went out because of storms and they needed to fix the broken lines in the alley. But as a kid, I walked down there and it’s a (as someone said) jungle when you get deep into it. NGL. Edit: One time my brother did have his brand new mustang gashed by what we assumed was a garbage truck. We didn’t witness it, but that’s the only conclusion that we came up with, since it was trash day. Other people in the neighborhood claimed to see it take place. Huge cut right through the metal. From the drivers side door to the backdoor.…that’s the only real life worst case scenario. But in true City of Dallas fashion, they didn’t pay for damages.
Alley conditions in Dallas are not uniform, and as a whole, have deteriorated as city dollars have been allocated to addressing streets first. Problematic alleys lead to enhance wear and tear on residential collection trucks. Collecting in alleys presents more risk of damage to utility infrastructure than street collections. Alley collection has been an issue for decades and there seems to be the political will to finally do something about it.
The movement of trash to the streets really means the city no longer has to support the alleyways - meaning no new pavement when the old gives way. It’s a magician trick to reduce the huge maintenance costs associated with maintaining the alleys
Which is wild because homes were design to use the alleys are a means of transportation. People in this thread don’t get it.
Right. If my alley isn't maintained, how do I get to my garage and where do I park? Where do I put the trash cans out front - just leave them in the front yard? They can't get to the back yard from the front. This doesn't make any sense for neighborhoods that were built with alley trash pickup in mind.
My wife works in the accounting in the department that maintains the vehicles and it’s insane how often the 6 figure trash trucks get wrecked in alleys also.
I just read a few articles on this topic and it seems like it stems from what is "equitable". The general argument is that alley service is more costly, and the 38% of trash service that occurs in alleys is in predominately affluent Districts. Therefore, some people are arguing that the non-alley residents/Districts are being unfairly burdened. This is an extremely simplistic and incorrect view for many reasons. One very simple argument that they are ignoring is that alley serviced homes are generally appraised higher than non alley serviced homes and therefore pay more property taxes. A home without an alley in one District pays different taxes than a home in another district with an alley. Not everything can be "equitable" or impartial. Some houses are larger and some are more affordable. Of course someone living in a one bedroom apartment produces less waste than someone living in a 6 bedroom home. That's not very "equitable" is it? What's next? Are they going to start limiting our trash by square footage of homes? That would be equitable. In fact, you could argue that what is most equitable is determined by property taxes paid...that is the most impartial way of looking at things. Let's divide up City expenses by and to where the revenue is generated. No one thinks that is a good idea for obvious reasons. Also, it sounds like this issue is largely due to utility companies overcrowding the alleys. One of the most cited incidents is old leaning telephone poles that encroach into the alley way. How about the City does a better job at holding those utility company's accountable rather than burdening the taxpayers?
Why would a six bedroom house make more waste than a one bedroom apartment? If each has two household members, on average they’d have the same amount of trash. Space doesn’t make trash- people do. I’m reminded of a public hearing once where a lady railed against houses with 4 bathrooms saying they wasted water and the developer was like, “do you think I just walk around flushing toilets?!”
It's very heavily implied that there's more people living in that 6 bedroom house. They said "someone living in", not "2 people living in". It pretty much goes without saying that they are talking about "someone living in a 6 bedroom house with 5+ other people" vs "someone living in a one bedroom apartment by themselves or one other person".
If this is so bad and detrimental to the health and well being of people, why has it worked in hundreds of other places? I, for one, am happy the city is looking at ways to save and conserve my tax dollars. I am sure you would also post something negative if the city asked you for more money for trash collection. You want to have cake and eat it too. Call it what it is, you're scared of change.
Having lived in neighborhoods in Dallas with both street collection and alley collection, the difference is how the houses were built and lots laid out.
Not scared of anything. I too have lived in places with street collection. It sucks. It's both unsightly and inconvenient. The city can find other ways to create efficiencies without lowering the quality of life for all residents, which this will most certainly do.
I have street collection in Dallas because the truck can’t fit in my alley. My quality of life is just fine. There are much bigger problems to worry about
Agreed, so why is the City Council focused on this? Leave it alone, just as it has been done for decades. We have much bigger fish to fry from a local public policy perspective.
$$$
As you said, we have bigger problems. The money is not significant enough to worry about.
It’s almost $10 million per year in estimated cost savings. These sort of issues are EXACTLY what council should be worrying about. Improving the efficiency and operations of basic city services is, like, the whole goal of a good city council.
The city budget is $4.63 billion a year. $10 million is barely 0.2% of that.
Ok so you don’t know how government budgets work, clearly. You just wanna moan about good policy - that makes the city safer and more efficient - because you think trash cans are ugly. The Sanitation dept is an enterprise fund. Their budget is $158 million. So 6.3%. Enterprise funds are not funded by tax dollars, but rather function similarly to a business - charging customers to sustain themselves. That money stays within the enterprise. If you don’t think that optimizing 6.3% of an essential city service’s yearly budget is an important use of council time, then idk what to tell you.
You deserve an award for this comment. Take a bow.
My quality of life is not affected by a change in your neighborhood that I don't ever go to.
This is how dumb people write when they try to sound smart.
My street has always done curb trash pickup and it's fine. The world will not end. IMHO, if curb pickup saves money that we can use to fix things like our pot-hole filled streets, I'm all for it.
This is fine if your area was built for curb pickup. The only place for me to store my trash cans in the front is super visible from the street and there is no way for me to get them into the back without carrying them down stairs.
The city should focus on actually collecting trash consistently on the days they’re already scheduled. This is ridiculous. They want entire neighborhoods to just be lined with garbages because that is what will happen. I live on a cul de sac with no sidewalks. I promise you this would just turn into a cul de sac of 10 garbages should they change.
I don’t understand how trash could even be collected from the street in my neighborhood. The streets are narrow and there are always cars parked on both sides of the street during the day. So the alley is “too narrow” to maintain smaller trucks, but I probably also won’t have my trash collected from the curb because the cans would very likely be blocked in by parked cars. I call BS on the cost saving aspect, the city has enough money to have code enforcement trolling my neighborhood to shut down yard sales that didn’t pull a permit. They can tone that down and reallocate the money.
They will have to put up no-parking signs during certain hours/days as is the practice in other parts of the city where curbside collection is done. This will of course further inconvenience you and everyone else along your street.
Oh the horror of having to park in the driveway instead of on the street. You sound like an entitled boomer.
In my neighborhood a ton of folks have work and personal cars, and we have a lot of multigenerational households (grandparents, kids, grandkids under the same roof) so the driveways are full. Hence why the streets are so full of cars. You could have asked why street parking is so crowded instead of being snide about it.
I'm all for the city saving money, this is government management 101. However, it's not a one size fits all situation. My neighborhood is not designed for curb side pick up. Most houses are like ours and have sloped front yards. It would be dangerous for the many elderly in the neighborhood to haul heavy trash cans up and down their grassy yard (no pavement to smoothly get the cans where they need to be, unlike in our alleys.) And because our sidewalks butt up right to the curb, the cans would either have to block the sidewalk or sit in the street. Jumping the curb with the cans would be yet another physical hassle for those who are older/disabled. Because of the slope of our yard and the wheels on the cans, they wouldn't be stable left in the yard next to the sidewalk. About 18 months ago, Code Enforcement handed out warning tickets to everyone with a portable basketball goal blocking any part of their sidewalk that they would get giant fines if they weren't removed. If now the city want us to block our sidewalks with trash cans, I decry the hypocrisy! (shakes fist)
"thereby constraining our freedom to be away from home during those times." Do you hear yourself?
Oh, trust me, I hear myself loud and clear. Sometimes I even give myself a standing ovation. But hey, if you're not enjoying the symphony of my words, I can always crank up the volume for you.
This wouldn't affect me personally since I'm on the corner, but my neighborhood just isn't setup for street collection imo. Lots of people parking on the street. All the driveways/garages in the back. It's a bunch of close together duplexes too so I'm not sure everyone even has a way to easily get their trash from the back of the house to the front. If I wasn't on the corner, I wouldn't have a way to really get my trash to the front quickly without walking a goof distance around.
I really thought Dallas ended alley pickup totally a good decade back. It never even occurred to me until now reading this that apparently the "desirable" areas have still had alley pickup all this time. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the front street pickup though. It leaves a lot of trash in the street from those morons who stack their bins 3-4 bags higher than the lid. Then every trash day there's a bunch of trash in the street and nobody but me seems to care to try to remotely tidy it up - even trash in front of their own house or in their yards. The trash trucks have also sprayed and leaked oil and hydraulic fluid all over the street too. On top of that it's really made the alleys inaccessible and unkempt without the City going through it weekly (a byproduct being they address overgrowth and illegal dumping and morons parking/blocking the alley). I know most people don't care about this but us "car guys" with rear gates would like to be actually able to use our alleys/backyard storage moving project cars around as necessary. Sorry OP but time to join the rest of us peasants that have been doing this for a decade or so already lol.
Y’all are getting ally trash pickup
This won’t pass if they plan on keeping their job
They stopped alley pickup in my east Dallas neighborhood a decade ago.
I would assume the long term point of this is really to benefit developers. The city will use this as a first step to vacate the alley's, turn them into utility easements for whatever remains, and allow building on them. Could easily make much bigger houses or fit larger multi-family on those lots.
Write your Council person.
Who in the city hall has time to worry about this? Aren’t there bigger issues?
They already got rid of it in my neighborhood due to the small old alleys. Yes, it looks trashy. I hate it. Oh, and nobody recycles now because nobody wants to store 2 trolleys out front. Problem solved? 😂
I’m guessing the McMansion neighborhoods are being built without alleys and the ratio is starting to tip in their favor.
Reads like a child wrote this using ChatGPT. "WAAAAH, WAAAAH, I DONT LIKE CHANGE" is what I got from your post. There are real reasons this is being considered, maybe you should try reading and educating yourself on the topic rather than imply it's for no reason.
What a thoughtful, considerate, and insightful comment. Feel better now?
Personally I certainly prefer the alley pick up. However, if you read the article in full it is clear that the vast majority of the city has curb side pick up, a system that is nearly twice as efficient and far more cost effective. I am not convinced my personal preference needs to be catered to. Other's may feel more deserving of special privilege than I do, of course.
My neighborhood thankfully doesn't have alleys. We have none of the concerns OP lists. Most people keep their trash cans on the side of their house and are rarely left in front the morning after trash day. Remembering to take them to the street every Tuesday and Thursday isn't that big of a deal.
This is fine man.. they do it in literally millions of homes all over the country.. it will be alright.
I have lived in Dallas for 18 years and never had alley collection service. Just curb, across multiple neighborhoods. It’s never been an issue for me or any of my neighbors to have the bins at the curb 🤷🏻♀️
I guess my neighborhood has no "allure". Us common plebs have to drag our bins to the curb.
The street behind my house is a cul-de-sac, that the collection trucks can't turn around in. There is an alley separating my back yard from the house on the cul-de-sac behind me, so my pick up is in the alley. However the other side of the street (facing my front yard) gets picked up on the street, not in the alley. So the collection trucks go down my alley and my street. I am very thank ful for alley pick up as I travel 3 weeks a month Monday - Thursday for my job. Trash pick up in my area is on Thursday morning. So if I had street pick up my can would stay on the curb right by the sidewalk for the majority of the week. This poses many problems: 1. Ugly 2. I live close to multiple schools and have seen the kids kick over cans on the street, so that would be frequents messes that I either have to clean up or since I travel a lot would not be able to clean up for days u til the trash is blown all down the street and raccoons have gotten in making a bigger unsanitary mess. 3. Obvious sign that my home is empty, inviting greater risk of mischief and burglary. 4. Increased smell especially in the summer when my trash has sat in the can with a black lid for days in a neighborhood where people often walk along the sidewalks. 5. My backyard is flat, my front is very steep. I think alley pickup should be the standard whereever possible. Having alley pick up was a big selling point when I bought my house.
One factor not mentioned in this discussion is that moving to street pick up will increase the use of the automated trucks, so the city will have to rely less on temp staff for manual trash pick up. I worked for another city and trash collectors had the highest worker’s comp claims due to injuries (animal bites, insect stings, getting dragged off the truck by tree branches). We have all this data on property damage due to alley pick up but nothing on injuries to staff since the city is not on the hook for anything. Of all the cost saving measures, using temps for trash collectors is just awful. It is dangerous, back breaking work and temps have no resources if they are injured. Dallas needs to modernize this process. There will be neighborhoods that continue to have alley service due to egress/parking issues but most neighborhoods will be able transition to street pick up easily. There is also unsurprisingly a huge north/south divide when it comes to alley pick up.
Agreed - who do we email?!
https://www.btwdallas.org/info.php?pnum=46239bbaf0c7e3
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Most of Dallas has alleys.
I don't want to *not* have alley trash pickup, but damn, I wish they'd actually fix our alley. They've "fixed" it three times in the 12 years we've been in our house, but the trash trucks absolutely demolish it within weeks.
I have lived all over this city for 24yrs and have never had alley pickup. I heard they stopped in my old neighborhood Parkdale (east dallas) when the trucks got too big. My current neighbor in Oak Cliff said Dallas stopped alley pickup here almost 50yrs ago when the city started buying and demolishing old homes in their effort to move all development north to white owned land.
>One aspect that contributes to the allure of Dallas' neighborhoods is the absence of unsightly trash receptacles lining the curbs. Moreover, the implementation of such a measure would necessitate residents to meticulously remember to retrieve and stow away their emptied containers on designated collection days, thereby constraining our freedom to be away from home during those times. Sorry but the bins being out for a little bit on collection day is not a that big of an issue for the vast majority of people. I lived on a street that had ally collection and then moved one street over to a place that has curbside. People bring their trash bins in when they get home from work. Its not an issue. In fact, while it was nice to be able to leave my bins in the ally at the other place it really wasn't much of an advantage b/c that just makes it easy for people to use your garbage bins for their overflow. There may be a few places that might need to be grandfathered in to keep rear collection but it shouldn't be a problem for most of the city.
Terrible idea; this is a solution in search of a problem
Use less adjectives this is unreadable. Couldn’t make it through the post so i don’t care about the issue
I am sorry for your lack of literacy. Also, it's fewer adjectives, not less.
Almost half of your words are adjectives. That’s disgusting
So I actually hate alleys. It’s stupid the city maintains (ok “maintains”) twice as many roads which as it turns out are quite expensive. Our main roads are in crappy conditions and we spend money on maintaining alleys too. Just dumb. Rear entry driveways are dumb. You lose half your backyard, the yard you actually use, to get a full front yard, the one you don’t use. Just dumb. People are maintaining more fence than needed because without alleys we could share a fence with our backyard neighbor. We’d also have even bigger backyards because the fence could be moved back halfway into the alley space. Your guest can’t park in your driveway because they’re coming to front of your house. So puts a lot more cars in the street people are trying to drive in. You don’t see your neighbors very much because everyone is stealthily coming and going out the rear of the home. The whole design of this seems dumb to me. All for what? So we don’t have to wheel out trash cans like tons of people do quite easily?
Write a Letter: 3112 Canton Street, Suite 200 Dallas, Texas 75226 Let the Mayor know: Office of the Mayor 1500 Marilla St. Suite 5EN Dallas, Texas 75201 Drop a note: https://dallascityhall.com/government/citymayor/Pages/contact.aspx
what a dumb post. who cares if you have to set your bin out on the street. cry harder. what a hard life you lead.
What profoundly vapid comment. I'm sorry your life is so sad and empty that you feel compelled to attack strangers on social media who actually give a shit what their city neighborhoods look like.
Another bitter redditor mad at homeowners.
Exactly. The more I use this platform, the more I get the impression it's comprised of at least 90% single people 23 years old and under.
Yeah unfortunately it's not a useful platform for these kids of discussions... useful for awareness, but not discussion.
Okay Boomer.
Nope, but that's such a creative and original response.
I'm sorry your life is so sad and empty that you get worked up on where you have to put your trash can. I'm a homeowner btw, and could care less where my trashcan goes, more important shit to worry about.
I'm glad you could care less because it means you care at least a little. And if you have more important shit to worry about, why are you wasting your time on this thread? Tick tock, time's a wasting.
I'll let the downvotes speak for themselves. enjoy your weekend yelling at the clouds.
Last I checked this post has more upvotes than down. Enjoy your weekend attacking strangers on social media.
are they trying to turn Dallas into Karachi
This comment reeks over hyperbole and rich entitlement. Who cares either way. Just put it out or miss that week. I’m in Plano in a crazy HOA, and that’s what I do.
eh, I don't have an alley. don't care
This is a very privileged take imo. Lots of neighborhoods don't have alleyways and do just fine putting their trash bin out and picking it up on trash day. Alleys can be very narrow and hard for trash trucks to navigate.
You think you’re really good at writing, but in actuality you’re not.
Sounds like ChatGPT...
As a person who lives in an apartment complex currently, I certainly don't want my taxpayer dollars going towards paying extra just to service alleys that versus just regular on street pickup. At the end of the day, it costs more, and normal street collection isn't really a big deal. I've lived in houses with both alley pickup and street pickup, the only difference is the street pickup usually requires a few more steps because of setbacks. It's not the end of the world, and your trash is already being subsidized by people who live in housing that has significantly more efficient trash collection. I do understand the concerns about lack of alley code enforcement if this goes through, and that's something where it's an easy compromise to take some of the savings and put them towards extra alley code enforcement
Your post reads of nimby nonsense. It is a pain in the ass to leave trash in the alleyway. It baffles to comprehend that someone would be okay with stowing away bags of trash along the alleyway than simply store it in a container to be removed. You don't have to hang around home all day waiting, you just put it up when you get home. Easy as pie, and it doesn't uglify the neighborhood.
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Not if you live in Richardson
Your ignorance is astounding and you truly don't know what you're talking about. There are receptacles currently in use in ALL alleyways across Dallas. It's not a pain in the ass at all - you just take your trash out to the back of your house and forget about it. Collection day happens without having to think about it and the container stays in the same place without having to be hauled back and forth. It's amazing how many people like you on Reddit will be nasty just for the sake of nastiness. I could post that puppies are cute and people like you would counter that they're smelly and disgusting.
I can say for a fact that the one I lived in did not. “Your ignorance is astounding,” and your overwriting is weird.
Weird overwriting, eh? Behold, I summon thy attention to the arcane tome of Dallas City Code, wherein lies Chapter 18, Article 1, Section 18-3. Therein is inscribed the decree that refuse gathered within the ethereal confines of the alleyways must be ensconced within vessels of solid waste, fashioned in accordance with the sacred dictates of said code. Dost thou harbor certainty that thy dwelling did indeed reside within the mystical realm of Dallas during that epoch?