DOR Stands Down On Street Sweeping Enforcement
Street cleaning in Chicago officially ended on Halloween.
But, often when the weather cooperates, Streets & Sanitation continues to try sweep streets when it can. Considering all the leaves that flutter into the streets and coagulate next to the curb, it’s a good policy.
Normally, it’s the job of the Department of Revenue’s Street Operations to ticket vehicles whose owners ignore or have forgotten that it was street sweeping day on the street they parked their car. Over the course of the street cleaning season, fines for these violations add up to millions of dollars for the city.
But according to sources within the DOR, Parking Enforcement Aides were ordered as of November 8th, to stand down on enforcing street cleaning violations for the remainder of November.
A random check of Northside streets with signs posted for street cleaning the past two days anecdotally supports this information.
The Department of Revenue wouldn’t officially confirm this change in enforcement policy, but DOR spokesperson had this response.
“Street sweeping season generally runs April 1st through October 31st and these dates are printed on permanent street sweeping signs,” says Stutz. ” At this point the season has ended however Streets and San will sweep the streets weather permitting. During street sweeping season all wards are enforced equitably. During the month of November some wards have scheduled street sweeping while others do not. Enforcement of street cleaning is during the designated season for consistency in enforc(ement).”
The city does strongly encourage drivers to heed the street cleaning signs when posted. Despite this seeming change in enforcement policy, it is in drivers best interest to not take a chance and move vehicles parked on streets scheduled for sweeping. In addition, street sweepers cannot not successfully clean a street when vehicles are in the way.
And if that DOR Spokesperson read the Streets and Sanitation website…they’d notice that Street Cleaning is Scheduled until the Last week of November for over 95% of the Wards in this city.
The Majority of Permanent street sweeping signs that have the Oct 31st end date are on the Major Business streets….not the Residential Streets.
Oh…the Police Department is still authorized apparently to enforce…despite the Alderman bending the Street Ops Dep Director to their will with promises and bribes.
How much a year does the city get in street cleaning fines?
Here’s something I noticed. I work in the river north area. After the pay boxes we’re put in I saw that the street cleaning signs were changed from 9 – 12 instead of 9 – 3. I thought maybe LAZ made some sort of deal to reduce the time that pay parking was unavailable. I believe I was right but it’s a little more diabolical.
Only the streets with the pay boxes had until noon signs. All the streets without pay boxes (there are still some) had signs posted until 3. That means that there are three more hours to pay to park AND you’re stuck because during noon ’til 3 you can’t park legally on the streets without the pay boxes.
Brian,
You’re not too far off the mark.
Here’s the deal. Via the meter lease contract, if the city has a metered street closed for too long, it has to compensate the meter company for the lost revenue from being closed.
If street cleaning exceeds noon, then one of these compensation events may occur and the city would have to pay Chicago Parking Meters.
Just another one of the great benefits of the meter lease deal (sarcasm intended).
Just received a violation notice in the mail for a supposed street cleaning offense on November 17th. Never saw a posted sign or received an actual ticket on the car though. Maybe this enforcement change was only for the north side.
Anonymous…..
Feedback from you requested:
1. Unit Number and Badge Number of Issuing Officer
2. Street and (if known) Ward you were ticketed in
A Point if I may…
The Department of Revenue Street Ops PEA’s were Instructed to NOT issue Street Cleaning Tickets as of the Date above mentioned by the Geek.
The Chicago Police Department has (to my knowledge) NOT been Instructed by the Deputy in charge of Patrol to NOT issue for Street Cleaning Posted Signage….regardless of Temp cardboard or Perm Metal Signs.
If the Ticket you got was Computer generated and Not Handwritten, call 312-744-PARK and ask for a Supervisor or Department Manager. The ticket should not have been issued by anyone in the DoR.
Contest the Ticket and call the number I posted. Use the information on this Blog as Proof that Street Cleaning enforcement Ops were suspended on 11/8/11 by 10am