Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced Thursday his intention to create a city program that would clean up trash and debris strewn throughout the city center.

Though Wheeler's announcement was short on specifics, he made clear his goal that Portland be "the cleanest and most livable city in the United States" and said an element of the new program will be to install more trash cans in the city core and establish regular pickups at the receptacles.

Complaints about trash on public streets, particularly in downtown and surrounding areas, are the most common grievances residents voice to the mayor, Wheeler said Thursday.

In fact, Wheeler said a resident approached him during his Thursday morning treadmill workout to complain about trash left by homeless people in the resident's neighborhood. Wheeler said that while he and his young daughter were in the Northwest 23rd Avenue area Labor Day weekend, they noticed the few trash bins available to the public were overflowing.

"We need to come together with a new and aggressive strategy around keeping our community clean and keeping our community livable," Wheeler said, adding "I've heard from everybody on this."

"I don't think it's rocket science," the mayor said.

Yet Wheeler hinted that cleaning up trash around the city is more complicated than it may seem. He said initial research has shown some trash bins are managed by a downtown trash collection district, while others are run by transit authorities and still more are controlled by business districts. Collecting litter near area freeways is the responsibility of the Oregon Department of Transportation. And a "patchwork of commercial trash haulers" all have a hand in the current system, Wheeler said.

The mayor vowed his administration will find a way to streamline the process and pick up more trash.

Downtown Portland businesses already pay for the Clean & Safe District, a 213-block segment of downtown monitored by roaming cleaning crews and security teams each day of the week. Crews removed 724 tons of garbage and more than 27,000 needles from downtown last year, according to the district's figures.

Recognizing the thin line between removing garbage from city streets and throwing away the belongings of Portland's many homeless people, the mayor said that whatever plan is developed "will not be about homeless camp movement."

Sonia Schmanski, chief of staff for Commissioner Nick Fish, said Fish and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly have had preliminary conversations with the mayor's office about a renewed trash clean-up effort. As parks commissioner, Fish has some control over trash collection policy within city parks. As transportation commissioner, Eudaly oversees city rights of way.

Speaking at a press conference Thursday, Wheeler let his thoughts drift back to his childhood in Portland and spoke of his pride in a clean city where "you just didn't see litter." Portland can and should return to those halcyon days when seeing trash on city streets was a rarity, he said.

"I expect it. The people I represent expect it," he said. "And there's a sense of urgency to it."

-- Gordon R. Friedman

An earlier version of this article misstated how the downtown Clean & Safe District is funded. The district is paid for by a fee levied on downtown businesses within the district.