10/6/2008:

Hoboken411 reader Mike is puzzled by the crack-of-dawn street sweeper activity…

WTF? Why so early?

“I experienced something interesting which I don’t believe I’ve seen before in the past 2 years that I’ve lived in Hoboken. There’s a chance that I have seen/heard it but simply didn’t think twice about it. What’s the story with street sweepers cleaning Washington at 6am? Lucky for me, I was awoken by one of these monstrosities the city calls “street sweeper” during today’s wee hours. Although my bedroom windows face Washington, they are sound proofed enough that loud noise “usually” doesn’t wake me up.

hoboken-street-cleaning-early.jpg

Posted on your site and on the city signs shows the odd side of Washington as being cleaned from 8am to 9am and the even side from 9am to 10am. What the heck is that thing doing there at 6am?

I’m not so much ticked off at the noise that it’s making at an ungodly hour, but the effectiveness of the actual cleaning. Although not 100% of the spots on Washington are taken before the 8am street cleaning, I would estimate that between 50-60% of the spots are in fact being used for overnight parking. This means that the street sweeper has to do one of those wide “get around the car” moves which just puts more garbage in the street (not even sure how that’s possible). Has the city ever explained the need for a 6am street sweeping on Washington if it’s happening again between 8-10am? Hate to go on a “my tax dollars are being wasted” rant but isn’t that what’s happening here? Based on the effectiveness of the 6am cleaning, I wouldn’t even call this “duplicated” work. More like wasted work.

Just thought I’d share .. perhaps you have some info you can share with us brave souls that call Washington their home. Back to sleep for me .. then again is there a point? That thing is coming back around again in the next hour.”

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