The adage “Figures lie and liars figure” is probably more appropriate in describing Peachtree City’s discussion about garbage trucks than the adage the city manager cites, “There are statistics and then there are damn statistics.”
The city isn’t being honest about the effect garbage trucks have on our streets.
The city made the claim garbage trucks are damaging city streets because a mathematical formula created a chart that showed they did, and offered no proof to validate the chart. Not once in two separate presentations did the city identify one street that had excessive wear attributed to garbage truck traffic.
The chart had four lines representing the wear and tear on a street over time. The base line was the design parameters for the street. The other three lines represented the theoretical effect one garbage hauler, two haulers and three haulers had on the street.
The chart was obviously flawed because the one hauler line showed an increase in the wear life over the designed street. That should have been a red flag to council, but they ignored it.
Instead, everyone’s attention was focused to the three-hauler line. The city highlighted the point that the street would require Full Depth Reclamation (FDR) at year 15, if no prior maintenance were done, whereas the designed street wouldn’t need FDR until year 25.
These two streets debunk the city’s chart, Preston Chase Drive and Chase Court. Preston Chase Drive is the main street into the subdivision. Both streets were built in 1993 and no maintenance was done until 2018. Over that 25-year span three haulers have traveled on them. In 2018, both streets had just a 2-inch mill and pave done. Were the chart valid, FDR should have been done in 2008, or 2018 at the latest.
Fairfield subdivision is nearly 25 years old. City records show all the subdivision streets are rated 80 plus, which means at most they require a 2-inch mill and pave. If the city’s chart was valid, they should be getting FDR soon.
The city further reinforces its dishonesty by threatening to increase garbage fees significantly if the citizens insist on having a choice in companies picking up their garbage. The fee increase is to pay for the theoretical premature damage that multiple garbage trucks would cause to the streets based on the invalid chart.
John Dufresne
Peachtree City, Ga.
Facts and charts are too much trouble when you already have the solution – sadly the solution is the single-provider plan – same thing Democrats have for your health care.
If Trump were asked to solve this “problem” he would simply say that he will reduce usage by 2/3 by assigning each of the three companies a zone within the city that is all their’s. Simple, easy, no disruption.
Could also assign a citizen committee in each zone to monitor the trash pickup provider and maybe even catch the one collecting the recycled items with the same truck that collected the trash 1/2 hour before and taking everything to the landfill. Not that I actually care, but it would give those that do something to pursue.
John, this is why I continually asked for metrics and methodology when I was there. You are 100 percent correct.