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Dallas City Manager Kimberly Tolbert has put her foot down on the ongoing alley-to-curbside trash transition debacle, scheduled to begin in 2026 and has placed a temporary pause on the shift, ordering further evaluation for alternative options in neighborhoods that strongly prefer alley trash services.
The proposed changes would convert approximately 26,000 homes currently served by alley trash pickup to curbside service. The changes would occur in phases and were anticipated to begin in January of 2026. The homes impacted were identified as sitting on 8–9-foot alleys, unimproved or semi-improved alleys, or extended dead-end alleys but with front-facing driveways. The evaluation will now include all 44,000 customers sitting on 8-9-foot alleys citywide.
“We hear you, and change is hard,” Tolbert said in a press release. “I’ve asked the staff to reconsider, review and reevaluate all the available feasible options and think creatively about solutions that may be workable. We must balance customer service expectations with worker safety.”
The city will conduct a survey to gauge community interest in continuing alley trash service collection. Of the solutions being considered, one involves a third-party vendor, which would result in increased trash collection costs.
The stall comes after weeks of pushback from community members concerned about potential property damage, among other grievances, such as general inconvenience and increased costs.
In early September, around 50 protesters gathered at City Hall to express their dissatisfaction with the proposed changes and encouraged council members to reconsider Dallas Department of Sanitation Director Cliff Gillespie’s trash service transition plans.
“Without public input, without council oversight and with limited analytic data justifying these changes, the city is proposing the elimination of alley service, citing safety equipment, utilization and financial concern without providing any transparency around their conclusions,” said James Collet. “…This plan fails to address the city’s existing responsibilities to residents.”
Collet and his wife, Libby, are behind a petition calling for the plan to be canceled. The petition has garnered over 10,000 signatures, more than a third of the total number of houses that would be affected by the changes.
Gillespie has been trying to oust alley trash collection for the majority of his tenure as director, which started in 2023. A 2024 attempt to eliminate alley services city-wide was scrapped after approval from the City Council seemed unlikely, after there was a similar negative community response. But the director does not need City Council approval for a condensed version of the plan.
Still, the council is not favorable towards Gillespie’s smaller plans. The night before the protest was staged in September, District 13 and District 9 Council members Gay Donnell Willis and Paula Blackmon issued a joint memo to City Manager Kimberly Bizor-Tolbert requesting an impact assessment of the changes.
“Thousands of residents value their alley collection service and want their concerns on the proposed transition to be taken seriously,” reads the memo. “While this decision ultimately rests with the Director of Sanitation, we must continue to advocate for the residents we represent and ensure their voices are given thoughtful consideration – particularly in shaping solutions that offer flexibility considering the reasons this conversion decision was made.”
For now, Dallasites, even in the smallest alleys, will take their trash out to the back. However, the city and the Collets encourage everyone to do their part in keeping the alleys clean so that our alleys are safe for sanitation workers, and perhaps we can even keep our alley trash services.
