For years Albany has struggled with stolen shopping carts being abandoned all over the place. Now the city will try something new.
Trying to get a handle on the problem of stolen and abandoned shopping carts, Albany passed a law in 2008. The law was amended in 2021 and then, in a reorganization of the city code, passed again in 2022. What has been the result?
Last week, this view of Periwinkle Creek in Albany was spoiled by the presence of a bunch of abandoned shopping carts half submerged in the stream. On Tuesday, as you can see, the carts were gone.
A wooden bridge across Albany’s Periwinkle Creek leads from a dead-end stub of 12th Avenue to the northern end of the Periwinkle Bikepath. The bridge needs work, and so does the creek below.
It was 13 years ago that Albany passed a law to get rid of abandoned shopping carts. It hasn’t worked. And now the city council is poised to try again.
What are we looking at here? A legacy of lazy shoppers? A symptom of impatience brought on by Covid-19? Or a sign that the collapse of civilization is closer than we thought?
Why carts can’t be retrieved, or aren’t
Three shopping carts discarded on Albany’s Dave Clark Riverfront Path illustrate why it’s so hard to deal with the plague of stolen and then abandoned carts.
Tags: containment measures, Dave Clark Path, Shopping carts