Here’s the southbound bike lane on Salem Avenue west of Waverly Lake on Friday evening.
It’s the end of November, so it must be time to get exercised about piles of dead leaves on Albany streets. Not that complaining does any good.
So there are piles of leaves all over the place. So what? What else do you expect in the fall in a city that has thousands of maples, walnuts, chestnuts, oaks and other deciduous trees?
Well, you might think we could do a better job clearing the leaves away.
On its public works website and social media, the City of Albany lets people know about the official “leaf pickup” days. It tells people that there are three 11-day periods in the fall when Republic Services goes around and picks up leaves from paved streets within the city limits, streets, that is, that have curbs and gutters.
Two of those periods are already past. The second one ended on Nov. 15. The third and last one won’t start until Dec. 2 and go until Dec. 13.
On Salem Avenue west of Waverly Lake, two or three big piles of leaves completely covered the southbound bike lane on the evening of the day after Thanksgiving. Traffic was heavy enough that I hesitated to swing the bike into the traffic lane. That’s what brought leaf disposal up in my mind.
The city and Republic want people to rake up their autumn leaves and dump them in their yard debris carts to be picked up once a week on trash day. That’s sensible advice.
Excess leaves, they say, may be raked into the street and piled up in long and narrow rows, 2 feet from the curb, to be cleared away when the Republic leaf crew comes around.
“Rows must not block storm drains, driveways or bike lanes,” the city website says. It’s easy to say “must not,” but on streets with bike lanes there’s no other practical place to put those piles.
One way to deal with this might be to have the leaf pickup operation start a little later, and then to run it continuously until the bulk of the autumn leaf harvest is gone. (That, obviously, is a question of money and resources.)
The other way is to realize that there are far worse problems to solve, and to relax about this one. Let’s have a little patience and work around those bike lane obstacles while they are there.
Even if it means I stop the bike until I no longer see headlights in the rearview mirror and then ride in the traffic lane for a few yards. (hh)
I find it frustrating that the City allowed Republic Services to charge us more (which means more “franchise fee/sales tax for them) to do weekly yard trash pick up and not enforce the leaf mandate of filling the yard carts first.
Note also in you pic, the leaves aren’t piled in narrow rows as instructed which would allow safe passage. How can Ray K. miss such a revenue source that fines can generate.
Recently discovered Republic Services Corporate requires our local Republic office to send a daily posting of a color coded city map showing city streets where leaves have been picked-up the previous days
They want customers to be able to see progress during each of the three pick-up periods.
If you call the phone # listed for RS to request that map they will send it via email attachment
What bothers me more than the leaves is that people put their trash cans in the bike lane. I never understood that.
Trash cans are supposed to be placed against the curb, which isn’t a major problem when they are,. It’s when the are dumped and set back down haphazardly and then remain for days that they become so.
Would it not be much simpler to ban bicycles from the streets during Leaf – Street season? Just asking questions.
I live on a paved cul-de-sac street with gutters off of Goldfish Farm Rd. I have never seen a leaf collection truck come down my street EVER. I do not have a tree. My neighbor does which deposits its leaves on my yard. My yard maintenance company blows them into a nice pile on my neighbor’s side. He will not bag them nor put them into my yard debris can since it is not my tree. I am 100% OK with this. The leaf pile gets bigger and bigger and then the wind blows it all back over to my yard. And yard guy does it again. I know everything will take care of itself in time, but I don’t understand why Republic never hits my street.
We have a similar set of problems in Corvallis. Bike lanes are not as well-respected as some of us would like them to be. Without belaboring the issue, I would only ask that you consider if asking all bicyclists to just ride out into the driving lane around those leaf piles could ignore safety concerns. Kids are riding to school in some of these bike lanes. There has to be a better answer.
Shovel them back into their respective property, no? You are clearing the public right-of-way.
Last year, I asked the City Council about having weekly pickups on the same day as garbage service – just like is done in Corvallis. I was told that this would cost more money. The first leaf pickup is always too soon. Maybe our new city councilor can address this for next year.