City makes changes to street sweeping program due to COVID-19

By Lethbridge Herald on April 21, 2020.

Herald file photo by Ian Martens - The City is modifying how residents are notified and eliminating tickets due to the current situation with COVID-19 during this spring's street sweeping program. @IMartensHerald

Annual neighbourhood street sweeping will begin Thursday April 23, weather permitting, but the program will have a few modifications because of COVID-19.

The biggest change is a lack of paper – there will be no paper door hanger reminders or windshield wiper notices and no parking tickets.

All changes are a result of efforts being made to support public health orders around COVID-19.

Residents are still asked to do their part and move their vehicle before 7:30 a.m. on street sweeping days. Instead of relying on traditional paper notifications, there is now a new option to sign up for a personalized street sweeping notice by email, text or automated phone call at http://www.lethbridge.ca/StreetSweeping. By signing up for this notification, a notice will be issued to an individual’s preferred communication channel the day before or the day street sweepers arrive.  Temporary NO PARKING signs will still be posted in a specific neighbourhood the day before street sweepers arrive as well.

For 2020 only, parking tickets will not be issued to vehicles that are not moved from the street. Instead sweepers will work around vehicles parked on the street but they will not return to areas that are not swept.

Street sweeping will begin in south Lethbridge neighbourhoods before moving to the west and then north Lethbridge neighbourhoods. The area of the city where sweeping starts rotates annually.

Typically, arterial roads without on-street parking and roads in industrial areas are swept at night between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. to avoid impeding traffic during busier daytime hours. Due to COVID-19 and decreased traffic in these areas, night sweeping will shift to daytime hours until further notice.

Each spring, street sweeping crews clean thousands of tonnes of sand, dirt and other debris from approximately 550 kilometres of roads in Lethbridge. This helps to prevent that material from being washed into the Oldman River via our storm sewer system. It also reduces dust in neighbourhoods and makes streets safer for cycling, walking and driving. Street sweeping is scheduled so that it doesn’t conflict with garbage pickup.

Sand and debris picked up by street sweepers gets stored and cleaned, and the reconditioned sand is reused by mixing it into new sand for the following year’s sanding operation. Residual waste material is disposed of in the landfill.

For more information, visit http://www.lethbridge.ca/StreetSweeping or call 311.

City of Lethbridge release

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