Proposed app would help drivers avoid getting stuck behind New York City garbage trucks

NEWYORK (WABC) -- A New York City lawmaker wants to make it easier for New Yorkers to know when and where those lumbering sanitation trucks are during their daily pickups.

The goal is to eliminate the annoyance of getting locked in traffic behind them.

"I have two little kids and I drive them every morning to school and I get stuck all the time, and I'm like, Oh my God we're going to be late again", said Crown Heights resident Noelky Sullivan.

Sound familiar? You're making good time and then you find yourself stuck behind a garbage truck.

Councilman David Greenfield says it's happened to him one too many times and now he has a plan.

"We should have GPS on the garbage trucks at all times so any New Yorker who wants can open up an app, open up Waze, and track the garbage trucks," said Greenfield.

Wednesday he introduced legislation to put GPS into all sanitation trucks and make that data available to the public.

He takes a cue from how New Yorkers can track the progress of snow plows online during snowstorms.

Greenfield would like similar information to be more readily available in the form of an app for garbage trucks.

"It's really common sense and it's about time we brought garbage trucks to the 21st century," he said.

Officials with the Sanitation Department didn't have a comment about the proposed legislation, but Councilman Greenfield is confident the department will get on board and that an app will be up and running in about a year.

"I actually think that their own employees are going to push them for this," he said. "Sanitation workers tell me all the time one of their biggest annoyances is, 'I'm just trying to do my job, why are you honking at me, cursing at me, yelling at me?'".

And it would certainly cut down on that morning stress.

"I even try to put notes on my phone to track the streets and it just doesn't work," Sullivan said. "So an app would change your life?", we asked. "It would change my life, it would change everything, yes," she said.