This Week’s Top Agenda Items

• Clean ups barely make a dent in litter problem
• City may borrow cameras to catch illegal dumpers
• Police traffic ticket books may be a thing of the past
• It will be a long climb to fix the city’s steps

Clean ups barely make a dent in litter problem

City council members won’t stop talking trash.

The city keeps trying to redd up the streets and abandoned lots, but the problem keeps getting messier, according to staff members of the Department of Public Works (DPW) who met with members of city council on Oct. 28.

DPW staff members and local nonprofit representatives reported that, despite their efforts, 311 receives 6,000 litter complaints every year.

According to Christopher Mitchell, project coordinator for DPW, Pittsburgh has unique challenges because it is a majority renter city and has high-density pockets of unoccupied homes, which attract litter and illegal dumping.

Attempts to mediate vary from volunteer cleanups, such as the Garbage Olympics, to systems changes. Increasing inspectors from two to 10 last year resulted in a 200% uptick in inspections according to Eric Contakos, inspection supervisor. Additionally, Contakos uses law enforcement software to find absentee landlords who are hiding behind limited liability corporations and not keeping up their properties.

Several participants discussed mandating trash cans with tight-fitting lids. DPW director Chris Hornstein estimated that a program similar to the city’s recycling bin distribution would cost $8-9 million. The department would also need to fit the garbage fleet with mechanical arms.

Hornstein reiterated that, overall, the department cannot meet the city’s needs without more equipment.

The Clean Pittsburgh Commission offered recommendations that included public education about litter and avoiding punitive measures. It also said the city could use a dedicated staff member to coordinate the nonprofits and thousands of volunteers who organize and participate in over 300 education and cleanup efforts per year.

City may borrow cameras to catch illegal dumpers 🔗

The Department of Public Works wants to catch illegal dumpers in the act.

Allegheny CleanWays has agreed to lend surveillance cameras at no cost so the Department of Public Works (DPW) can monitor and investigate illegal dumping.

DPW director Chris Hornstein said every council district has “illegal dump sites that just go above and beyond.”

Illegal dumpers primarily target vacant properties, alleyways and hillsides. They leave large-scale items like construction debris and what Council Member Bob Charland of the South Side described as dozens of tires.

Hornstein said the loaner cameras are out of the city’s purchasing price range. Its current cameras are cumbersome and require a dedicated power source that make useful placement difficult. He did not know how many Allegheny CleanWays will lend the city.

The Environmental Enforcement Team will determine the placement and movement of the cameras. It will also share data with law enforcement.

According to Hornstein, there’s a high bar for prosecution. The cameras need to capture identifying information of people in the act of dumping. “It’s a worthy bar to try to pursue in some of those really egregious cases.”

Other than the cost, DPW and Allegheny CleanWays have not negotiated terms of agreement. Hornstein said it will likely cover two years.

Police traffic ticket books may be a thing of the past 🔗

City police need an automated system for traffic citations instead of the inefficient paper tickets it currently issues.

The Department of Public Safety requested permission from city council to use Traffic and Criminal Software (TraCS). State police will supply the sublicense at no cost to the city.

TraCS allows officers to create and transmit electronic crash reports, traffic citations and non-traffic citations from their vehicles. State police and several municipalities already use it.

Pat Fosnaught, commander of administration, said city police currently hand-write citations. Court staff members then process those citations before putting them into the state system for prosecution and for the court proceedings. He said manual input results in “a lot” of errors. The requested software does everything automatically.

Additionally, Pennsylvania passed a law last year that will require municipalities to report traffic stop data once state police have a reporting system in place. The city does not currently store that data, Fosnaught said, and TraCS will make it easier to submit those reports.

Council Member Barb Warwick of Greenfield noted that adding traffic stop data would be helpful in furthering Vision Zero efforts.

Council Member Deb Gross of Highland Park asked for assurance that the software would not aid in immigration enforcement. Director of Public Safety Lee Schmidt said the software does not share data with federal agencies.

It will be a long climb to fix the city’s steps 🔗

Funding requests climbed this week for city step repairs.

The Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) requested $705,180 for the final designs of the next set of repairs. The request brings the total design cost to nearly $1.4 million.

Acting DOMI director Jeff Skalican said upcoming repairs include Dickson Street in Marshall-Shadeland; Potomac Avenue in Banksville; Clairhaven Street in Crafton Heights; Ottawa Street in Mount Washington; and 56th Street in Lawrenceville. The department faced criticism earlier this year for repairing less-used stairs on Stanton Avenue in Stanton Heights.

The city completed an assessment of over 800 stairs in 2018, which prioritized repair by nearby destinations, population and density of steps; demographic factors including poverty and vehicle access; and length of detour without functional stairs.

Pittsburgh boasts more stairs than any other city in the country. It totals 45,000 individual steps.

Money from a transportation improvement program and a bond funded the project’s preliminary design. The bond and federal dollars from 2023 will fund the final design phase.

The design funding constitutes a fraction of the project’s total cost. According to WESA, each set of stairs costs between $500,000 to $1.5 million to repair.

Skalican said construction will begin next year.