A bit of a Rant - Montreal Street Cleaners

I usually try to keep optimistic about things, but sometimes you witness something so utterly bizarre and wasteful that it get difficult. So, where to begin?

As most of you undoubtedly knowing, living here in the city, that Montreal, at times, seems like it's being rather poorly managed and run. Those of us who live out in the suburbs and rely on public transportation have surely felt the sting from faulty, and late, trains every winter, while the rest of us who live downtown have had the wondrous joy of having to deal with constant construction with closed roads and sidewalks that seem to last months at a time. Over in the Plateau this has especially been the case (anyone remember the days before St-Laurent was torn up, and rebuilt at an agonizingly slow pace?).

Well, while poor construction planning, and a shaky public transit system can be cause enough for some pulled hairs, recently some other oddities have started to catch our attention over here at 21st Century Food, namely with the public servants who clean our streets.

Have you ever been out on the sidewalk when the streets cleaners and are doing their rounds? These wonderfully ugly, noisy red phone booth like cabs that sometimes drive by at high speeds (without warning!) and clean up our streets with vacuum like trunks? As weird as they are, those aren't so bad. Normally I would have no problem with our city getting a little bit of a shine, but this spring we've noticed something a little odd with the other vehicles and crew that sometimes follow them.

What I'm talking about here are those other vehicles, the ones that drive by really slowly, with a massive container of water and simply spray the sidewalks. A few feet behind them is usually another vehicle, which then not so much scrubs, but pushes the water around.

Now, in case there is one person living out there that hasn't noticed it yet, it's been raining the past five days, so why do we need a vehicle to go down the streets and spray untold gallons of water on concrete that is already wet? They've been out there all week, just dumping more water on the already drenched sidewalks, half the time while it is currently raining.

I suppose the cleaners are probably scheduled to go out and hit the streets on certain days, but isn't there someone who has the authority to look out the window, and decide "hmm maybe we don't need to spray more water on the ground today"?

I find this so aggravating. Not only are our tax dollars being spent to have our city workers perform a sometimes useless task, when there are so many other pressing matters in the spring (pot holes anyone?), but it is such an incredible waste of water as well.  These vehicles use up hundreds of liters of water on every section of our streets and sidewalks. We have hundreds of kilometers of roads, and times this by the water used in this way and its starting to get pretty crazy. We always hear how clean water is one of the most valuable resource, and yet we can afford to waste it.

I have an idea, why not just send out the guys who scrub the streets when it rains? Let nature do her part, and cut back on costs, and not recklessly waste such a useful resource.