{"id":153743,"date":"2026-02-06T14:59:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T14:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/153743\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T14:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T14:59:07","slug":"which-residents-will-keep-alley-trash-pick-up-and-will-they-pay-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/153743\/","title":{"rendered":"Which residents will keep alley trash pick up, and will they pay more?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photo by Carol Toler<\/p>\n

Dallas Sanitation Director Clifton Gillespie spoke with Dallas City Council members Wednesday to answer questions about his plans to eliminate alley trash pickup for some households. The action is necessary, he said, to improve efficiency and safety.<\/p>\n

In early 2024, Gillespie proposed switching all alley service to curbside<\/a>, but he began considering other options after council members were inundated with phone calls and emails from angry constituents. His \u201chybrid approach,\u201d<\/a> unveiled last June, didn\u2019t fare much better. A November survey<\/a>, sent by city officials to measure the opinions of affected customers, had a record-high 25% response rate, with 93% requesting to keep their alley service and 60% agreeing to pay more for that option.<\/p>\n

In Wednesday\u2019s presentation to the council, Gillespie made it clear he still believes curbside collection is the \u201cbest practice\u201d citywide, but he shared additional possible alternatives and invited council members to weigh in before he makes the final decision.<\/p>\n

He said the \u201chybrid\u201d approach (option one) would transition homes to curbside where alleys are nine feet wide or narrower and 60% or more of homes have front driveways. This would affect 26,000 customers. The \u201ctighter feasibility\u201d approach (option two) involves transitioning only alleys with 100% front driveways, short driveway length and no circular drives. This would affect fewer than 10,000 customers. The \u201croute-by-route\u201d plan (option three) would eliminate alley service where alley conditions are critical (rutted and unsafe for trucks and their drivers to navigate) and survey response rates were low. This would affect fewer than 5,000 customers. The \u201cno transition\u201d plan (option four) would retain alley service for customers who currently have it, except where conditions are too dangerous to continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of this comparison is not to identify a right or wrong choice, but to clearly lay out the tradeoffs involved,\u201d Gillespie explained. \u201cFrom a safety and operational standpoint, staff supports approaches that include some degree of transition out of constrained alley environments. That\u2019s options one, two and three.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some council members asked for detailed cost savings figures, comparisons with large metropolitan cities across the country, safety incident comparisons between alley and curbside, and dollars spent repairing damage by sanitation trucks in the front of homes versus the alleys. Gillespie and his staff did not have those figures to share but said research and development work would be completed by his department based on feedback from the council.<\/p>\n

Standard, modern sanitation trucks are wider and hold more capacity, making them more efficient, Gillespie said. Several council members acknowledged the possibility of increasing fees for alley users. Some, though, particularly those with mostly curbside customers, pressed for assurances that households in their districts would not see fee increases to pay for retention of alley service in other parts of the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of my homes are up in Midway Hollow, Elm Thicket, North Park and West Dallas,\u201d said District 6 Council member Laura Cadena. \u201cThey were annexed really late into the city, and they have never had alley service or pickup. So that is a concern of mine \u2014 making sure that we keep their rates low, especially because there are some economic challenges in that community.\u201d<\/p>\n

District 14 Council member Cara Mendelsohn noted the poor condition of alleyways throughout the city and offered a mea culpa on behalf of Dallas leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s on us,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s a systematic lack of investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pressed a question she\u2019d asked before: Could the city outsource sanitation services the way Fort Worth and several other cities do? She also wanted to know why the City Plan Commission continues approving housing developments with alleys and rear entry if alley maintenance and alley sanitation services are unlikely to continue.<\/p>\n

District 3 Council member Zarin Gracey asked about damage incidents in the alley versus curbside.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlley collection represents 37% of our collection points,\u201d said Gillespie, \u201cbut it makes up 58% of our damage.\u201d In narrow alleyways, trucks sometimes hit gas meters, fences, utility poles and trees. Presumably, the remaining damage occurs during curbside collection, and Gillespie referred to sanitation trucks striking cars and other impediments along the street.<\/p>\n

District 10 Council member Kathy Stewart noted that she had walked alleys in Lake Highlands with Gillespie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are usually and very often doing around this horseshoe is balancing different interests,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, we are balancing the risk of injury to workers and property damage and operational concerns with what is workable, right? Workable for our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart said she and her husband, Robb, have owned five houses in D10 over 40 years, including two with curbside pickup, and \u201cit\u2019s not a bad option.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a front driveway where the elevation is fairly flat, it is not terribly different,\u201d she said, explaining that using the alley is more difficult at her current home, where there\u2019s an incline in the back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you have to get into the nuts and bolts of this,\u201d she added, \u201cand you do have to find what\u2019s workable.\u201d<\/p>\n

One issue not addressed was the inefficiency of potentially having different styles of sanitation trucks crisscross each other in neighborhoods as they service some streets which no longer qualify for alley pickup and others which do. Will trucks meet themselves coming and going as one block\u2019s driveways are deemed too steep or too long or too curved or otherwise ineligible for the switchover, while the adjoining block\u2019s are not?<\/p>\n

After considering feedback from the council, Gillespie will do additional research, communicate with customers and work with sanitation officials to begin implementing the new plan in February of 2027.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find Gillespie\u2019s presentation here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Carol Toler Dallas Sanitation Director Clifton Gillespie spoke with Dallas City Council members Wednesday to answer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-153743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}