Jim Kenney: Keep Your Campaign Promise. Bring Back Street-Sweeping in Your First Term.

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Sign our petition to tell Mayor Kenney to keep his campaign promise, and bring back street-sweeping services before the end of his first term.

Philadelphia is known nationwide as an exceptionally dirty city, and this dirt problem even has a name: Filthadelphia.

Mayor Kenney campaigned on changing this during the 2015 campaign, and restoring the street-sweeping program was a regular part of his stump speech. He even said that cleaner streets are worth the occasional hassle of alternate-side parking.

The red flags started going up right after the May primary, when Kenney started backtracking, saying he'd only bring the program back for neighborhoods willing to move their cars, and there would be some kind of opt-in or opt-out provision. 

This week we found out it's been cast aside even further, as a "Long-Term Priority" in the Zero Waste Action Plan released this week, described in the most non-committal possible language. At some undefined point in time, the administration will maybe "consider restoration of street sweeping."

That's unacceptable. Mayor Kenney needs to make restoring street-sweeping a priority in his first term.

As we've argued previously, street-sweeping should be one of Philadelphia's bedrock municipal services. Philly was actually the first city to have a street-sweeping program (thanks, Benjamin Franklin!), and now we're the only major city that doesn't have one. It's relatively cheap, costing the capital budget just $18 million in to buy the sweepers, and about $3 million in annual salaries to clean the whole city every other week. The problem isn't money—it's people who don't want to move their cars, even occasionally. 

The Mayor is already on the record saying that he wants to take the cleaner streets side of that trade-off, and now it's time for him to make good on that promise. 

Sign and share the petition, and help us send a message to Mayor Kenney that he needs to put clean streets first, and be accountable for what he promised the voters.

333 signatures

Will you sign?

Showing 284 reactions

  • William West
    signed 2017-08-09 12:57:51 -0400
    William West This is a part of the broken windows theory that I think actually works. A cleaner city would have positive effects in many ways.
  • Kevin Collison
    signed 2017-08-09 12:55:28 -0400
  • Caithlin Murphy
    signed 2017-08-09 12:53:46 -0400
  • Anya Saretzky
    signed 2017-08-09 12:49:17 -0400
    It’s embarrassing how dirty our city is. I personally clean up my street but there’s only so much I can do. Even once a month seeping would be a huge improvement. People will get used to moving their cars – just as they have in other cities.
  • R W
    @ricduck tweeted link to this page. 2017-08-09 12:47:50 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets http://www.phila3-0.org/street_sweeping?recruiter_id=14912
  • R W
    signed 2017-08-09 12:47:04 -0400
  • Carol Haufler
    signed 2017-08-09 12:38:57 -0400
    “Filth-a-delphia” needs to become a memory.
  • Pica Pa
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-09 12:20:47 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Pica Pa
    @PICA_Authority tweeted link to this page. 2017-08-09 12:20:43 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets http://www.phila3-0.org/street_sweeping?recruiter_id=20280
  • Daniel Esposito
    signed 2017-08-09 12:20:12 -0400
    Bring it back…there are other cities that have programs that don’t require moving cars. If we don’t go that route, it would be almost self-funded through ticketing/towing fees.
  • Lisa Flagg
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-09 12:16:48 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Lisa Flagg
    signed 2017-08-09 12:16:18 -0400
    We need cleaner streets now!
  • John Prisk
    signed 2017-08-09 12:15:52 -0400
  • Sean McGrath
    signed 2017-08-09 12:13:23 -0400
  • Bradley Dakake
    signed 2017-08-09 12:09:34 -0400
  • Jake Liefer
    signed 2017-08-09 12:04:28 -0400
  • Shani Ferguson
    signed 2017-08-09 12:02:48 -0400
  • Megan Boyle
    signed 2017-08-09 11:56:14 -0400
    Megan Boyle
  • Joe Celentano
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-09 11:53:22 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Victoria Harris
    signed 2017-08-09 11:48:41 -0400
    I voted for street sweeping, this city is an embarrassment and there are easy fixes to some of our ugliest problems. Stop being hesitant to do anything!
  • David van Balen
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-09 11:41:03 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • David van Balen
    @ tweeted link to this page. 2017-08-09 11:41:00 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets http://www.phila3-0.org/street_sweeping?recruiter_id=42116
  • David van Balen
    signed via 2017-08-09 11:40:29 -0400
    “[I] agree that cleanliness is more important than on-street parking.” —Jim Kenney, 2015

    “Meh, too hard.” —Jim Kenney, 2017, probably
  • Marcus Ferreira
    signed 2017-08-09 11:40:22 -0400
    Mayor Kenney, please do not allow a select few folks who do not want to move their cars periodically to stifle street sweeping, which is a benefit to all Philadelphians. If it is that big of a deal to move one’s car (a machine specifically designed to facilitate movement) then it is unlikely that the vehicle is a necessary and integral part of that person’s life.
  • Amy Perlingiero
    signed via 2017-08-09 11:40:10 -0400
  • Matt Zapson
    signed 2017-08-09 11:39:52 -0400
  • Rachael Rice
    signed 2017-08-09 11:35:24 -0400
  • Dena Driscoll
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-09 11:34:05 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Dena Driscoll
    @bikemamadelphia tweeted link to this page. 2017-08-09 11:34:01 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets http://www.phila3-0.org/street_sweeping?recruiter_id=20318
  • Andrew Ortega
    signed 2017-08-09 11:31:31 -0400
    Regularly scheduled street sweeping is a fundamental part of solving numerous issues that plague the city of Philadelphia.

    Currently Philadelphia is the only city of America’s 20 largest cities that has no municipal street cleaning program at all , this is not a statistic that can be seen as positive.