Road-sweeping plan will work better if more people follow guidelines: Residents

They say only some in private landed estates park on the side of the road they are asked to

- Wong Yang and Sheo Chiong Teng

Mr Low usually leaves his car parked on the left side of the road outside his semi-detached house near Bukit Panjang. However, every Tuesday, the 50-year-old businessman moves his car to the opposite side so a road-sweeping vehicle can clean the left side of the roughly 100m-long street.

Then on Thursdays, residents are supposed to park on the left so the road sweeper can return to clean the right side of the road. At least, that is how the National Environment Agency's (NEA) Alternate Roadside Parking programme is supposed to work on cleaning days in the 33 areas where it has been rolled out.

The problem here and elsewhere is that only a few residents, such as Mr Low, comply with NEA's instructions on which side of the road to park on.

These residents told The Sunday Times the well-meaning initiative could be much more effective if more people complied with NEA's instructions.

NEA launched this programme, which encourages private landed estate residents to park on alternate sides on cleaning days – in 2019 and will expand it to 12 more areas in 2025, ST reported on Jan 5.

The agency said the programme has cut cleaning times by between 50 per cent and 80 per cent, as all roads in private landed estates used to be swept manually by cleaners.

But some residents said patchy compliance has meant that leaves and debris are left on the uncleaned side of the road. And workers are deployed to blow and sweep leaves from under cars, and into the path of the mechanised road sweeper.