🗑️ News on Fulton Street Trash & Sign Our Letter To The MTA

🌟 Author’s Note

Hello to the 5 new subscribers of the Better Block Project, bringing our total group to 110 members. It was awesome to see so many of you at this week’s Community Board 3 General Meeting. I am going to make an effort to continue to remind folks about upcoming Community Board meetings to attend (they are unfortunately terrible at marketing themselves…). They are a good way to meet other individuals doing work in the community and learn about major city projects that affect our area. It can be a bit like Parks & Rec at times, but I will let you be the judge 😉 

📣 Next Week: Mapping for Equity Event on Saturday, November 15th @ Herbert Von King Park

We’re partnering with BetaNYC for a Mapping For Equity Event in Herbert Von King Park. As a reminder, BetaNYC creates the OpenStreetMap to map community assets such as street lamps, benches, water fountains, trash cans, and picnic tables. Through this mapping, they collect data to see where there are more and higher quality community resources, and what needs to be improved. It’s a great tool for advocacy, and we’re excited to try it out. Register here if you have not already!

📣 News on Fulton Street Trash & Trash Clean Up for December 13th

This week, we learned from the BedStuy BID that they are receiving funding for 7 new city bins to containerize trash on Fulton Street. This is a pretty big win for solving trash on Fulton Street, as containerizing illegal dumping is the best opportunity to truly keep the street clean.

So, what’s a city bin? A city bin is not a normal trash receptacle you see on the corner of the street. They are larger metal bins that are locked and primarily used for storage of trash that the BID cleans up. A common sight on Fulton Street is bagged trash next to the waste baskets, usually from the sweeping the BID is doing on a daily basis. The benefit of these city bins is this bagged trash can go in a bin, as supposed to on the street, which reduces the likelihood of bags opening, rats getting inside and beautifies the street.

We still don’t know exactly where the city bins will be placed, but we’re going to advocate for the hot spot corners (Franklin & Fulton, Spencer & Fulton, Nostrand & Fulton) that we believe will make the most impact.

What’s next? On Thursday, the Fulton Trash 🐯 Tiger Team met to discuss what is next to ensure the street stays clean. We’re happy about the progress with the bins, but skeptical that it will fully solve the problem. We talked about a few things:

• Concerns about the quality of infrastructure following the floods on Fulton Street two weeks ago

• How we can partner with other organizations, like Ready, Willing & Able, to push our cause for a cleaner Fulton Street

• How we can better bring attention to this issue with Elected Officials

As next steps, we aligned on planning a Trash Clean Up on Saturday, December 13th. As I have shared in prior updates, we want to move beyond advocacy with Better Block to start solving some of the problems in the community ourselves. While a trash clean up of Fulton will only improve the situation for 1 day, we believe we will learn a lot, raise awareness of the issue and we’ll have a few clean blocks for a day. It will be a start! If you’re interested in participating in planning of this event, just reply. Lastly, here is a picture of part of our amazing Trash 🐯 Tiger Team.

✉️ Our Letter to the MTA on the Franklin & Fulton Bus Stop

Our next steps in improving the Franklin & Fulton Bus Stop are advocating directly with the MTA to improve the bus stop. We’ve drafted a formal letter, attached here, with four main asks:

1. Remove the construction storage in front of the bus stop: The current construction staging area has created a semi-enclosed, hidden space that facilitates illicit activity. This setup directly contradicts standard permitting guidelines, which typically prohibit blocking active bus stops. The enclosure has effectively transformed a public transit area into a haven for drug use and violence.

2. Add permanent lighting to the bus stop: Insufficient lighting in the area enables illicit activity to occur on the bus stop and underneath the shuttle train. The MTA should add permanent lighting of the full area to deter illicit activity.

3. Remove seating at the two bus shelters closest to Fulton Street: The seating has become a gathering point for illegal activity and has rendered the shelters unusable for everyday riders. While we value the importance of comfortable transit access, these shelters, in their current condition, are being misused in ways that endanger public safety and discourage lawful use of public transit infrastructure.

4. Add security to the bus stop to prevent further illicit activity: Until the area is completely removed of all illicit activity, MTA should add permanent security to the bus stop so residents can walk by and ride safely.

Isis and I spoke at the Community Board 3 Meeting this past week about the issue and were able to get more than 20 signatures to our effort. We’re now working to get signatures from local businesses, the full Franklin-Brevoort Block Association, the Lefferts Place Block Associations and other nearby blocks. Once we complete this, we will share the letter with elected officials and the Community Board to get their signature before sending back to the MTA for approval.

In good news, the 💡NYPD lights for the bus stop are finally on their way. The lights are near the block now, and I spoke on Friday with the community officer at the local precinct who let me know they would be moved to Bedford Place and Lefferts and Fulton very shortly. Lights are a simple way to deter illicit activity, so we’re hopeful this will make an impact. I am cautiously optimistic they’ll be up by early next week, hopefully sooner. Lastly, the Community Board District Manager also mentioned they are working with Congressman Jeffries office regarding the situation, so we’re hopeful the increased attention from elected officials will make a difference.

That’s all for this week’s update. As always, if you like what we’re doing here at the Better Block Project, forward this to someone else you know who wants to do more work in the community!

See you next week,

David