New Haven Independent

Prusski, who runs a small trash-hauling company with her father, said she was collecting trash on Rt. 80 last week when a cop stopped her and asked: Do you know what you’re doing?

She was reminded of a new city law: No more trash pickup before 7 a.m., in most areas of the city. The law, passed in June, came after years of outcry from neighbors being woken up by trucks beeping in reverse and smashing into cans in the wee hours of the night.

Haulers used to start their trash routes as early as 4 a.m., when they could zip through streets without hitting much traffic.

The new law, which applies to private waste collectors only, not city trucks, restricts trash pickup to between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., Monday to Saturday, with no trash pickup on Sundays. In business areas (zones BD and BD1), the restrictions are a bit more lax: The 7 a.m. restriction is pushed up to 6 a.m.

Now trash haulers and business interests are lobbying to change the law, which they say has backfired into traffic chaos. Several trash haulers came to City Hall last week to lobby the aldermanic Legislation Committee, which is considering amending the so-called “refuse ordinance.”

Prusski told of one tricky downtown stop on Howe Street, across the street from where Yale’s constructing a massive parking structure/sculpture building. Construction has shut down one lane of traffic. Prusski has to park down the street, get out, and wheel the dumpsters by hand to her truck. At 4 a.m., that’s doable. At 6 a.m., “I gotta block up all the traffic.”

“In that downtown area, we’re holding up traffic already,” chimed in a representative from Waste Management.

The Hospital of St. Raphael, in a letter submitted to the board, told of morning traffic mayhem spurred by the law. At 7 a.m., waste haulers must compete with 18-wheeler delivery trucks for spots at the St. Ray’s loading dock, leaving trucks idling on George Street, hampering rush-hour traffic flow, wrote Peter Duffy, vice president of St. Ray’s facility operations. Duffy pled for an hour’s more time to let trash trucks do their job.

The Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce also submitted a letter warning the “burdensome regulation” of trash pickup was delaying delivery routes.

Fair Haven Alderwoman Maria Reyes-Rivera, who co-authored the recent trash and noise ordinances, was not about to budge. She said trash haulers aren’t respecting current guidelines.

“Four in the morning is not acceptable for my neighbors. … I see you out there at 2 a.m and 3 a.m., and who’s calling me? My constituents. They can’t go back to bed. You have to figure out how to work with the public and the traffic and the school buses,” she said.

After further discussion, both sides agreed that restrictions could be altered downtown, where most problems seemed to occur.

“I think downtown is very different,” said Downtown Alderwoman Frances “Bitsie” Clark. “[Residents] moved there knowing it’s a noisy place.”

Clark said she was swayed by a Waste Management rep who framed the restrictions as a threat to citizens’ safety. Trucks need to back up out of alleys, and that’s safer earlier in the morning, when the road isn’t full of pedestrians and cars. “God forbid, you back up the truck and a child is there.”

Clark said that image hit home. “It’s much better to have the trash come at 4 a.m.”

Alders tabled the item until next meeting of the Legislative Committee, agreeing to ease restrictions from 7 a.m. to 6 a.m. downtown, but seeking a better definition of exactly what “downtown” means.