New York, NY – New York City is considering a plan to remove all trash cans from some subway platforms.
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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been testing the plan at two stations for the last two weeks: The Main Street station on the No. 7 line in Flushing, Queens, and the Eighth Street N and R station in Manhattan.
The MTA says it’s an experiment to see how much it can reduce the amount of refuse it picks up in the stations in a given month. If it is successful, it may expand the program to some other stations.
The MTA says the two-month no-bin experiment is being tried because the agency has more trash than it can handle at its 468 subway stations.
Will be double the work people will throw things on the floor
Great, so now people will throw their garbage on the floor or on to the tracks…..
how would removing trashcans altogether make it cleaner? people will now just throw their trash on the ground, which may get on the tracks, which (if you read any of the signs on the subway) leads to track fires and slowdowns!!!
“The MTA says the two-month no-bin experiment is being tried because the agency has more trash than it can handle at its 468 subway stations.”
Pathetic reasoning by the MTA. If the majority of riders had some pride in keeping the transit system clean maybe this could work… this is 2011 and sadly many people don’t give a damn and will just toss their trash unto the ground. All this will do is cause trash track fires and help breed more rats.
They did similar trials like this in other cities specifically in public places, where all garbage bins were removed. It turns out 99.9% of people are civil enough to not throw trash on the ground. The other .1% who would throw trash on the ground, threw it on the ground even in the presence of trash bins. Therefore, the streets did not get any dirtier, and the cities are saving a lot of money.
This should have been done a long time ago – and for a different reason. It is a prime spot for a terrorist to put a bomb.
Typical government!
Actually it would make it safer. But definitely not cleaner .
If garbage cans are overflowing, surely the simplest solution is, well, to add another can or two at each location?
Many places also use waste baskets with built in compactors to reduce the size (not the weight, of course) of the trash – thus letting each container hold more. Outdoors (such as on elevated platforms) you can use solar powered units, while in the underground subway these could be an option if near an outlet.
Put some overpaid, under-worked supervisors on trash duty and problem solved.
another expense the mta cant handle, sanitation. sometimes i wonder what they actually spend on besides overtime and health benefits that are endless cash sucking funds that only grow
This is a great headline. It epitomizes why NY is such an expensive cesspool of a place to live.