Tag Archives: chicago street cleaning
Street Cleaning Season Begins Monday Morning
Bright orange cardboard signs heralding the start of Chicago’s street cleaning season began popping up on trees, light poles, and sign posts at the end of last week in anticipation of the season’s traditional April 1st start.
But while April 1st is the official start for the city’s blue street sweepers to begin scrubbing the flotsam and jetsam from Chicago streets, because the 1st falls on a Sunday, street cleaning actually begins Monday morning at 9 AM.
Drivers who ignore or forget about the orange signs on the street where their vehicle is parked, face returning to see a $50 ticket on their windshield.
“Keeping the streets clean is critical for allowing safe travel for motorists and for sustaining effective storm water management in our sewer system,” said Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Thomas G. Byrne. “We are asking residents to support our street cleaning efforts by obeying any posted parking regulations.”
Motorists should remember on most residential streets, street cleaning is enforced from 9 AM until 3 PM. Shorter enforcement windows may occur on streets with metered parking where end times range from noon to 2 PM.
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.
Parking Ticket 101: Street Cleaning
Tips For Avoiding & Contesting Street Cleaning Violations
Street cleaning season in Chicago officially kicks off this Friday, April 1st.
While parking tickets are frustrating, perhaps the most annoying parking violation is for street cleaning.
In most cases, the signs were posted and the driver knew the big blue street cleaners would be there in the morning–but simply forgot.
60 bucks is an expensive mistake.
But here are some tips so you move your car in time and keep those damn bright orange street cleaning tickets off your windshield.
Street Cleaning Schedules
The City of Chicago just posted the 2011 street cleaning schedule on the Streets & Sanitation website.
Find your ward and your zone within the ward, and it should list every date for the entire street cleaning season, which runs through October 31st.
Write all the street cleaning dates on the household calendar and plug them into your phone’s calendar application . Then set the alarms to remind you ahead of time to move your car.
Your local ward’s website should have the street cleaning schedule for your ward listed.
Some wards will actually provide printed schedules to constituents.
City Street Sweeping Schedule Still Not Posted
Street Cleaning Season Begins In Two Days
Screen shot from Streets & Sanitation website
UPDATE 11:36 AM: New street cleaning schedule is posted at Streets & Sanitation website.
UPDATE 9:33 AM: Streets & Sanitation responds.
“We hope to have the street sweeping schedule posted soon,” says Matt Smith, spokesperson for Streets & Sanitation. “We have a lot of areas to cover so it might take a little time to get all of the components online.”
ORIGINAL POST: While Chicago’s street cleaning season is only 48 hours away from its official start on April 1st, the Streets & Sanitation Department has still not posted the city’s 2011 schedule for street sweeping.
As of midnight Wednesday, the Streets & San website still had a place holder image that simply stated, “Street Sweeping Information Is Still Being Updated.”
In addition, the link to the 2010 schedule is still active and is causing confusion with at least one ward office. One aldermanic staff member claims their office is getting calls from confused constituents who are unsure whether to believe the schedule posted on the ward’s website or the one posted at the city’s Streets & Sanitation website.
1st Ward Debuts Free Street Cleaning Text Alerts
Drivers Get Warnings Night Before, Morning Of, To Move Car
First ward Chicago alderman Proco Joe Moreno may have been in office only four months, but he’s already ahead of his aldermanic colleagues when it comes to technology.
Just a few days ago, Moreno’s office debuted a new text alert system to warn constituents when street cleaning is scheduled for their block, so they can remember to move their cars and avoid tickets.
Residents of the 1st Ward can use their cell phone to sign up for this free service by texting a specific code number that reflects their geographic position on a map. The night before and the morning before street sweepers hit your street, you’ll get a text message reminding you to move your car.
The idea came out of the frustration of the typical complaint of parking tickets for street cleaning that constantly flow into aldermanic ward offices all across the city.
DIY Street Cleaning Signs
Reader Dana Kupper captured a photo of this handmade sign in the 4100 block of north Ashland reminding drivers to move their cars so they don’t get ticketed for street cleaning.
Seemingly, this sign hanging hobbyist must be frustrated with the lack of signage by CDOT on that block or perhaps hates seeing drivers getting ticketed so often.
“We need more citizen heroes like this!” Kupper says via e-mail. “Those permanent signs about (weekly) street cleaning on the bigger streets are tricky and hard to see. It would be great if it caught on, I know I have seen people be the victim of not looking up at the signs at 7am and running into a coffee shop or something and coming back to find a great big fat ticket.”…
Street Sweeping Mini-Controversy In West Town
Some drivers in West Town are trying to get some street justice, or actually street cleaning justice.
According to CBS 2′s Jay Levine, a number of residents in that neighborhood are upset they got ticketed for street cleaning violations…when the street were not cleaned.
The street was scheduled to be cleaned and the signs were posted correctly, but for whatever reason the street sweeper never showed up.
The drivers who got tickets don’t think that’s fair.
Now 26th ward Alderman Robert Maldanado is trying to help those ticketed drivers get their tickets thrown out.
This type of situation raises many questions.
Fox Chicago News: Aldermen Cleaning up Chicago… One Street at a Time
Fox Chicago News and Mark Saxenmeyer do a bang up job in their television version of a story from The Expired Meter.
Check out Fox Chicago News’ full story about Ald. Tunney & Ald. Waguespack right here.
Buy Yourself Your Own Street Sweeper
Ever dreamed of owning your very own street sweeper?
Isn’t that every young child’s dream?
Of course!
Well for the current bid price of $500 you can indulge your inner child and operate your very own Elgin street sweeper. Yowza!
The unit is owned by the Village of Bensenville and is up for auction on a website called iBid, an online auction run by the State of Illinois.
StopTheBroomNow.com Sweeps Away Tickets
Another Street Sweeping Alert Service Debuts In Chicago
By Diana Novak
Believe it or not, now there are two different services to help you evade those pesky street sweeper tickets.
StopTheBroomNow.com is a new subscription street-sweeping alert service (very similar to StopParkingTickets.com a service this site spotlighted just a few days ago) that launched a week ago.
Designed and run by Joel Guy, 28, a Logan Square local working in IT, this messaging reminder site hopes to modernize how we park during street cleaning season.
