In a recent weekend trip up to Santa Monica, CA and around the beach areas of San Diego, there are signs warning you not to park on certain streets on a random day of the month (like the first Wednesday) because of ‘street sweeping’. Well, let’s presume for the moment that these streets are really ‘swept’ on that day. What also happens on that day is lots of people park on that street just like they did the other 29 days of the month but got a parking ticket.
Conveniently these streets are also ones where there is always a parking problem because they are near the beaches, or other desirable location where people want to park. But, why just these streets? I live seven miles inland and none of the streets near me are on the city’s street sweeping schedule, and there is always plenty of parking. Then I read a story this morning about a business that has sprung up in Santa Monica to specifically combat the problem.
While I suppose this could be an IMHO question, I have to wonder what value there really is to ‘street sweeping’ since it’s done in a seemingly random fashion only in areas where parking is otherwise a problem, such that violations will be numerous. Is this really a blatant scam just to generate parking tickets? I’d really like to hear from a city worker as to what criteria are used to determine what streets are worthy of being swept.
I can’t answer for that locale, but here (Chicago) the streets are cleaned primarily because of tree flotsam, and secondarily for litter. That stuff clogs up our sewers and makes for fragrant flooding when it rains. Not to mention, there’s some variety of tree here with little itty bitty seeds that fall in big patches that get extremely slippery when wet. I nearly sprained another ankle on a patch just last night. (Street cleaning is next week on our block.)
And yes, we all move our cars except for the one or two that forget or oversleep, and yes, they get tickets. It sucks, but street cleaning really is needed for public safety.
WAG: Could it be that, on streets where there’s always plenty of parking, there’s usually enough room to do a decent job of street-sweeping without insisting that the few cars that are there move?
I’ve seen streetsweepers in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – none of the streets were particularly busy when I lived there.
I agree with those who have said that street sweeping is for any dusty/sandy street, and the “don’t park here” signs are only necessary when the street in question is almost always busy.
If you live in an area where there is always plenty of on-street parking, then the city doesn’t need to worry about cars getting in the way of the sweepers. Even if the sweeper can’t clean a particular spot this week, the odds are pretty good that it will get cleaned sometime in the next month.
But parking in Santa Monica is really tight. It only takes a few minutes (sometimes a few seconds) for an open spot to get filled again. So if the city didn’t block out times for the sweeper to come through, the street would NEVER get swept.
I live in Westwood a few miles east of Santa Monica and our neighborhood has the same rotating schedule for sweeping. Each side of the street has a four hour block once a week. The sweeper does come through (I’ve seen it) and the parking cops will ticket you if they catch you blocking the sweeper on its designated day.
When an area has a lot of construction traffic (new homes and such going up), regular street sweeping cleans up nails and screws that fall off trucks going to work sites. It saves people from getting flat tires on both their cars and bicycles. A valuable service, IMHO, and worth the hassle of not parking in certain spots once in a while.
The residential neighborhoods in St. Louis City have once-a-month street cleaning. They will give you a ticket and yes, the sweepers do come through, and yes they make a big difference. I didn’t really realize until my car broke down and I couldn’t move it for a couple of months. When I did get it towed, there was a small pile of branches and debris that had accumulated under it along with a clear swooping dirty spot where the sweeper had to go around my car. It’s pretty common almost anywhere with street drains because it’s important to keep debris and other junk out of the sewer system. I would imagine high-traffic areas, dusty/sandy areas, and heavily tree-lined areas would have more need for sweeping than suburban areas with fewer/smaller trees, less traffic, and “natural” drainage.
Fair enough for the northerners among you. If I lived in a place like New England where the leaves were falling everywhere and there was strong winds and inclement weather blowing things around, then yes, I could see how street sweeping would be a needed and appreciated service.
In Los Angeles and San Diego? Uh, that’s not much of a problem, and for the record, the sand does not migrate much further off the beach than the road immediately next to it (and I’ve never seen street sweeping on Pacific Coast Highway, by the way). I don’t even think litter is an issue because Californians in general are pretty decent about that. Oh sure, there are poorer areas inland where litter is everywhere, but then again, those areas probably don’t get street sweeping. And if this is presumably to prevent the storm drains from getting clogged when it rains…I have to ask, what rain? It seldom rains around here. I would arguethat even with ‘plenty of parking’ they would still have a tough time street sweeping around all the cars, and in the 11 years I have lived on my street, it has never been street swept once (nor needed to be).
Hamster King - holy crap :eek: you have street sweeping once a week in Westwood? I think once a month in San Diego or Santa Monica is way too often…And last time I was in Westwood, it was a ghost town, other than next to UCLA. What the hell is happening on your street?
Well, since you live there you know the weather/litter circumstances better than I do. Cities do lots of things as blatant revenue generators (red light/speed cameras, stupid parking rules) so it’s certainly plausible that it’s happening in your city. Unless the board has a Santa Monica streets department worker here, I’m not sure you can get anything other than opinions.
I would add that stormwater runoff from streets carries a lot of rubber dust, oils, and metals. Regular street sweeping helps to make the runoff a bit less nasty when it drains into the nearest creek.
In Pawtucket RI they are alleged to generate $800,000 a year in street sweeping fines, while only occasionally sweeping. I can’t confirm the figures, but it’s accepted as a form of revenue.
To be honest, I don’t know if the sweeper comes *every *week during its allotted time. However, the posted times are weekly. Maybe they figure that it’s simpler for people to remember “Never park on Friday morning.”
There are real reasons to sweep streets – and in fact, some municipalities may be required to sweep in order to reduce the amount of pollution being washed into streams and rivers.
Which isn’t to say that some cities haven’t seen a revenue potential.
And, thirdly, some towns also see street sweeping as a way to increase available parking, by making sure that cars can’t be left/abandoned in the same place for months at a time. If they sweep twice a month, they’ll notice and tow the abandoned car, freeing up a parking space. I wouldn’t call this a ‘scam’ in that it’s a legitimate interest, more like a side-effect that the city sees as good.
My residential street (suburban Chicago) has a sign which says I cannot park on my side of the street every Monday, due to street sweeping.
I’d be stunned if my street were swept once a month, let alone once a week.
My guess is that the sign serves three purposes:
To make sure the street is clear if and when they decide to sweep
To keep people from parking immobile junker cars in front of their houses for extended periods of time
To generate revenue…this is the same village which had 9 separate mandatory inspections when I had my bathroom remodeled last summer – each inspection but the final lasted no more than 60 seconds, but each inspection certainly did have a fee involved.
Oh, and my little hamlet does not allow parking from 2:00 am to 6:00 am every damn night within the city limits; but do they sweep the streets then . . . noooo! . . . that’s when they collect revenue from people’s overnight guest. :smack: a-holes~!
Are you sure of the cause and effect, there? Maybe people litter just as much anywhere, but in the rich areas that have street sweeping you don’t notice it because it all gets cleaned up, just like it should.
Every other week here, 2nd and 4th Thursdays for our side of the street, 1st and 3rd Mondays for the other. Lancaster, PA.
And they DO sweep…when I was unemployed I used to be woken up by the roar of the forgotten-by-me sweeper vehicle and panic (too late…already ticketed).
