AUDIT FAULTS S.D. STREET SWEEPING
Report says city needs to update routes, analyze data and change metrics
SAN DIEGO
A new audit says San Diego needs to expand and refocus its street sweeping program to reduce pollution f lowing into waterways, but city officials say neighborhoods often object to being targeted for more sweeping.
San Diego should add more sweeping routes in specific areas, aggressively analyze data to adjust priorities, and use different criteria to measure the program’s effectiveness, according to a 71-page analysis by the city auditor.
Archaic record-keeping and minimal data analysis have resulted in the city classifying as “low priority” the majority of routes with relatively high debris, and the city classifying as “high priority” the majority of routes with low debris, the audit says.
One effect of such inefficiency is more debris and pollutants f lowing into the city’s sensitive watersheds, including Los Peñasquitos Creek, the Tijuana River and Chollas Creek in southeastern San Diego.
The most obvious benefit of sweeping is the removal of paper, leaves and other debris from gutters and storm drains, which boosts neighborhood appearance and reduces f lood risk during storms.
But city officials stress that sweeping also removes virtually invisible metal particles and other hazardous waste deposited by passing vehicles, which can harm fish and other wildlife if they reach creeks, rivers, beaches and bays.
The audit says San Diego should
increase the number of “posted” sweeping routes, which require people to remove cars to allow sweepers to hug the curb and clean the streets effectively.
City officials have agreed to add more posted routes, but they noted that will increase community backlash and costs.
More posted routes cost more money because additional parking enforcement officers are required to patrol areas scheduled for the sweeps, and ticket vehicles parked there during the sweeping times.
Additional cost increases include posting signs and conducting neighborhood outreach to make people aware of the regulations.
Another hurdle to more posted routes is neighborhood backlash, city officials said. Many of the city’s posted sweeping areas are in neighborhoods where parking is relatively scarce, making it hard to find spots on sweeping days.
Fewer than a quarter of the city’s 215 sweeping routes are posted, and no additional routes have been elevated to posted status since 2012.
Kris McFadden, who oversees street sweeping as director of the city’s Transportation and Stormwater Department, said that’s partly because the city held a “managed competition” eight years ago to determine whether to outsource street sweeping to the private sector.
City employees won that competition with a comprehensive proposal, and there have been only minor changes to operations since then, McFadden said.
But those changes are worth noting, the audit says. They include sweeping medians that serve as center islands of roads, and the use of regenerative-air sweepers instead of more-polluting vacuum sweepers.
McFadden agreed to make all the changes recommended by the audit, including a shift in the criteria the city uses to evaluate the effectiveness of its sweeping program.
San Diego has been using annual miles swept, but the city will shift by next June to a combination of total debris collected and percent of miles swept.
The audit says those criteria will reveal a more robust picture of the program’s effectiveness, and allow the city to see areas where improvements are needed.
Los Angeles, San Jose, Long Beach and Santa Barbara use some combination of the new criteria that San Diego will use.
In the audit, another criticism of San Diego using the goal of annual miles swept is that the city has failed to achieve its goal of 117,000 miles per year during each of the last four fiscal years.
The city swept 106,000 miles in fiscal year 2017, 113,000 miles in fiscal year 2018, 92,000 in fiscal year 2019 and 93,000 in fiscal year 2020.
McFadden has agreed to have the street sweeping program produce its first annual report in September 2021, and to identify suggestions for more posted routes by June 2022.
The program completed its shift away from manual recording of data to using computer tablets on July 1, nearly three months before the audit was released in late September.