Plus it emits far more carbon (and costs more in gas) than a small hybrid that could do the same work. Very good point.

City Hall – DR assigned this issue to Public Works - RL (Operations)

This truck is actually doing double duty. While one of the duties of this vehicle is to make announcements prior to sweeping a street, it is also the vehicle that the sweepers dump into once debris is removed from the street and would be in the area anyway. The larger vehicle is still necessary and an important part of the operation.

Uh, no. It used to be done by a small pick-up. I understand that the dump truck services the street sweepers, but not at 7-9am! The dump truck drives around for 2 HOURS; how much diesel does that use. This sound to me like it's convenient for DPW managers, but BAD for the community and the environment.

Sorry for the late response on this. The announcements are actually done by multiple trucks of various sizes during street sweeping operations. Our street sweepers start at 4am and 6am and our larger trucks do service the sweepers between 7am and 9am.

Typical, they have the announcement playing while doing this. Depending on which street you live on, these trucks travel multiple times to the DPW yard to unload and then they may take the same or a different root back to where the sweepers are working.

Also, we do not want to tow vehicles during street sweeping operations if it can be helped. To accomplish this, we feel that the announcements being played by several of our trucks in conjunction with email and text street sweeping reminders and street signage all help to accomplish this.

If you would like to discuss this further, please call our main number at 617-349-4800 and ask to speak with our Community Relations Manager.