USE DISTRICTS 



II 



system for cleaning streets as well as collecting refuse in that locality. 

 On the other hand, where the district is of a mixed type, involving 

 industry, manufacturing, as well as a residential section, it is not 

 possible to plan the most economical system of street cleaning and 

 refuse collection, because conditions will differ in various parts of 

 such intermixed districts. I would say, in general, that the develop- 

 ment of the zone system, involving an orderly development of build- 

 ing zones, should ultimately tend to economy in the cleaning of 

 streets and in the collection of refuse, as well as providing a plan and 

 a system which will meet particular conditions of each district or 

 section dependent upon the uses to which the section or district is 

 put. The demand for sanitation varies with the type of building occu- 

 pants. A residential street requires at least a higher standard of 

 street conditions than would a business or a mixed type of street, 

 and a great many complaints come to the Street Cleaning Department 

 from streets where mixed business and residential occupancy is in 

 force. If stores could be segregated, plans in that connection could 

 be adapted to that particular type of street, whereas, if conditions 

 are mixed, you can only compromise. 



" There are some streets in lower Manhattan where it is hardly 

 possible to clean the streets during the day time on account of the 

 procession of vehicles which prevents the cleaners from collecting the 

 street dirt. On that type of street the same sanitary conditions can- 

 not be maintained as would be required in a residential street. In 

 that, respect traffic conditions in a residential locality also adversely 

 affect the street because there may be a residential street which con- 

 nects with a traffic street, and it is not possible to keep that residential 

 street in as good a condition as other similar streets in the same 

 locality, because the men cannot work advantageously while traffic 

 occupies the street. Even in the case of mixed occupancy of a par- 

 ticular block, residence, business and factory use, the factories and 

 business places in that particular block tend to bring heavy traffic into 

 the block and make it difficult to keep it in the best sanitary con- 

 dition." 



In a residential street the number of street accidents, chiefly to children, 

 varies directly with the vehicular traffic. Stores, garages, factories and 

 other business buildings increase the amount of vehicular traffic. Most 

 side streets that have no business or industrial buildings have little traffic. 

 Very often a single business building in the midst of a residential block 

 will so increase traffic as greatlv to increase the number of street accidents. 

 This will be particularly true if it is a congested tenement district. Here 

 the streets swarm with children. They must have some place to play and 

 unfortunately there is no place but the street. A very large proportion of 

 •street accidents occur to children while playing in the streets in front of 

 their homes. The zone plan will, as to the future, segregate the business 



