Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by scrose 846 days ago
The city would extend a no-bid contract to run a 6-month pilot in a 3 block radius.

It’d go to a random company that never did anything related to trash pick up, but one of the board members would be loosely related to the mayor.

The mayor will then do a victory lap in front of journalists talking about this revolutionary project.

The winner would then sub-contract a series of shell companies to handle ‘planning the design and implementation’ of the vehicle used to pick up the debris.

3 months will pass and the first community board meeting about the pilot in the neighborhood will happen, where the project will hit vicious opposition from people citing gentrification, how this pilot will rip apart the fabric of the neighborhood, cause gridlock, be dangerous for kids (What if a kid runs infront of the magnet bike??), etc…

6 months and $5M later, the pilot gets extended and another $50M worth of funding having never picked up an ounce of trash.

Hello from NYC