Dallas has postponed its decision to phase out alley trash collection.
In a memo by Assistant City Manager Alina Ciocan sent to the Dallas City Council last week, Ciocan announced that the decision will be pushed back at least a year to allow for more input from residents.
“The City values resident input and is committed to evaluating the feedback we receive as it relates to this initiative,” Ciocan wrote. “Therefore, in an effort for us to reset and revisit this approach, Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert has asked our Sanitation team to postpone the suggested implementation timeline to allow for further community engagement.”
Council members were briefed on the possibility in June when Department of Sanitation Services Director Clifton Gillespie told them that he plans to increase curbside collection by ending alley pick-ups, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Each week, sanitation workers collect refuse and recyclables from 258,000 locations across Dallas. Of those, 62% are curbside, and 38% are alleys.
Gillespie cited safety issues as another reason for phasing out alley collection services, saying that the narrow passages of the alleys are not designed to fit today’s sanitation trucks.
“Crews face daily risks from extreme weather, overhead utility lines, utility poles, gas meters, and unpredictable alley conditions, including ruts and other obstructions. These conditions have also caused fires resulting in total losses of trucks, injuries to personnel, and near misses for electrocution,” Gillespie had said.
City staff recommended that the majority of alleyway collections be phased out over the next two years, with alleyways being converted to curbside collection by January 2026.
Despite Gillespie’s concerns about continuing alley trash pick-up, many residents voiced their own concerns about ending the collection service.
“Dallas wants to eliminate alley trash pickup. Curb pick-up is bad math, ugly, dangerous, and anti-elderly. It saves less than 0.2% of the budget. It puts more monstrous trucks on crowded streets. Let’s not do it,” wrote X user Herb Duncan.
“We have no front access to the street except the alley that faces Preston Road. We will have to drag the bins down the alley past two houses and out to the street and back up the street to our house on the curb. We both are in our 70s. Not ideal for our longevity,” wrote another X user Tim Feemster.
Ciocan said that City staff will continue to participate in community meetings to discuss the topic. A follow-up briefing to the Dallas City Council will be pushed to the summer of 2025 to allow for more discussion on the topic.
Relatedly, polling shows that residents have been unhappy with “the amount of trash, litter, or junk” found in their neighborhoods and “elsewhere in the City of Dallas,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.