# Street Sweeping: Why So Thorough? \[incl link to Cecil's SD-Chi column\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665 "2010-07-14T15:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/21 "2010-09-23T15:14:31Z")
> [@Wheat](#): > > So I’m relatively new to living in Chicago, and something that has struck me is that while all other city services seem to be lacking a bit, the street cleaning is still very thorough. Although it’s only halfway through the summer, my local street has already been swept three times. This is much more street sweeping than other cities I’ve lived in. > > So is there something about Chicago streets that requires that they be swept regularly? Or is regular street sweeping just an attempt to get more fines out of inattentive car owners? (I’ve noticed that the signs go up at most two days before the sweeping begins.) The Master has [addressed your question](http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20100923.php), **Wheat**. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/22 "2010-09-23T15:28:54Z")
I have to take my hat off to Bangkok’s street sweepers. They do an excellent job under trying circumstances. There are no vehicular sweepers. They’re all older ladies who sweep with a broom and cover themselves from head to toe despite the hot climate. That’s so they don’t become darker than they already are, also a common practice among construction workers and farmers. SA-LUTE! (Sorry if this was irrelevant. The thread popped up under New Posts, and I see now it’s Straight Dope Chicago.) ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/23 "2010-09-24T12:27:36Z")
Congratulations, **Wheat** , this has now been picked up by Cecil: [http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20100923.php](http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20100923.php) ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/24 "2010-09-24T16:40:23Z")
Nice informative article, but it doesn’t really address the OP. It says nothing about how much revenue is generated from the fines, or about objective reasons for the apparently aggressive sweeping schedule. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/25 "2010-09-24T16:48:28Z")
This procedure has made me angry since I lived in Chicago for a year in the mid 1980s. Other cities post signs that say when the streets must be clear for cleaning crews. Posting a sign 24 or 48 hours in advance does nothing for the person who’s on a two week vacation. They could at least put up a sign that says,“danger, legal parking may become illegal with 24 hours notice, check your vehicle daily.” ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/26 "2010-09-24T17:11:29Z")
> [@Wheat](#): > > But I guess my question is still: is street sweeping this frequently actually necessary, or is it just an attempt to raise revenue from drivers who don’t pay attention? For that matter, does the city make a profit on sweeping at all? I have paid close attention to street sweeping in Los Angeles. I have done before and after photographs, taken samples, etc. My research has concluded with one, very important point: **Street sweeping does very little to actually clean the street.** The truck comes by, with these big, spinning metal brushes, squirts some water, and essentially just leaves the impression that it has done something. Most garbage and dirt just gets pushed aside. So to answer you question, **Wheat** : Either it raises more revenue, or assuages public concern about cleanliness, but–in L.A., at least–it’s not really addressing any necessity. ---
**Author:** ![BorgHunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@BorgHunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorgHunter)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/27 "2010-09-24T23:48:38Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > This procedure has made me angry since I lived in Chicago for a year in the mid 1980s. Other cities post signs that say when the streets must be clear for cleaning crews. Posting a sign 24 or 48 hours in advance does nothing for the person who’s on a two week vacation. They could at least put up a sign that says,“danger, legal parking may become illegal with 24 hours notice, check your vehicle daily.” It’s not like it’s some enormous secret. Cecil linked in his article to the [street sweeping schedule](http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/streets/provdrs/san/svcs/street_sweeping.html), sorted by ward, which I always checked prior to leaving on vacations, back in the days before I sold the infernal contraption. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/28 "2010-09-25T16:51:35Z")
> [@BorgHunter](#): > > > [@Procrustus](#): > > > > This procedure has made me angry since I lived in Chicago for a year in the mid 1980s. Other cities post signs that say when the streets must be clear for cleaning crews. Posting a sign 24 or 48 hours in advance does nothing for the person who’s on a two week vacation. They could at least put up a sign that says,“danger, legal parking may become illegal with 24 hours notice, check your vehicle daily.” > > It’s not like it’s some enormous secret. Cecil linked in his article to the [street sweeping schedule](http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/streets/provdrs/san/svcs/street_sweeping.html), sorted by ward, which I always checked prior to leaving on vacations, back in the days before I sold the infernal contraption. Fair enough. I lived there before the internet. And, of course, visitors and newcomers might not have any awareness of the practice. ---
**Author:** ![royboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f08c70/32.png) [@royboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/royboy)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/29 "2010-09-26T03:23:20Z")
Cecil, I don’t really care about this particular question, but I couldn’t let the word “civic virtue” and “Chicago” be used in the same sentence without commenting. It’s been almost exactly forty-one years since some of your crooked cops broke down the door of Covenant Methodist Church in Evanston, beat people up who had not broken any laws, and then perjured themselves to convict them. You may have all sorts of great things in Chicago, but tell me, are the cops still as willing to lie as they were under the first Mayor Daly? Are the courts still as ready to believe them? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/30 "2010-09-26T12:57:08Z")
> [@royboy](#): > > Cecil, I don’t really care about this particular question, but I couldn’t let the word “civic virtue” and “Chicago” be used in the same sentence without commenting. I assume Cecil was being sarcastic. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/31 "2010-09-26T18:32:00Z")
> [@BorgHunter](#): > > It’s not like it’s some enormous secret. Cecil linked in his article to the [street sweeping schedule](http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/streets/provdrs/san/svcs/street_sweeping.html), sorted by ward, which I always checked prior to leaving on vacations, back in the days before I sold the infernal contraption. Secret or no, frequent or not, if the street sweep-sweeping is nothing but a token gesture, a machine that passes by, simply pushing refuse aside and squirting some water on the ground, what difference does it make? I haven’t had the opportunity to examine the level of street sweeping in Chicago, but I doubt that in any place it ever really does that much to make the streets cleaner. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/32 "2010-09-26T18:42:59Z")
I assure you that Chicago street sweeping is of the highest quality, and trash and debris is actually removed. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/33 "2010-09-26T18:51:12Z")
The street sweepers in LA must suck. Or they’re dealing with different debris than the Chicago ones. Chicago street cleaners actually clean pretty well, so much so that you can see the path where they have to swerve around the cars with the pretty parking tickets on them. Small tree branches, leaves, paper trash, cigarette butts and assorted bits and pieces of Happy Meal toys seem to be the largest piles of detritus by volume. The street cleaner can effectively remove all of them. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/34 "2010-09-26T22:30:59Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Small tree branches, leaves, paper trash, cigarette butts and assorted bits and pieces of Happy Meal toys seem to be the largest piles of detritus by volume. The street cleaner can effectively remove all of them. Really? How could one truck hold all of that? They’re not really all that big. It would be full after ten blocks–even without the palm tree things that are always falling. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/35 "2010-09-26T22:59:15Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Really? How could one truck hold all of that? They’re not really all that big. It would be full after ten blocks–even without the palm tree things that are always falling. Y’know, I have no idea where the stuff goes. You’re right, the street sweepers aren’t all that big, once you account for a truck sized engine that must be in there. Mulchers, maybe? Or maybe they have to offload fairly frequently. I don’t know. And sadly, [HowStuffWorks](http://auto.howstuffworks.com/street-sweeper.htm) fails me in their article on street sweepers. Oh…CECIL! Got another one for ya! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/36 "2010-09-27T09:33:57Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Congratulations, **Wheat** , this has now been picked up by Cecil: [http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20100923.php](http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20100923.php) Nevermind, user error. ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/37 "2010-09-27T14:50:43Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > > [@WhyNot](#): > > > > Small tree branches, leaves, paper trash, cigarette butts and assorted bits and pieces of Happy Meal toys seem to be the largest piles of detritus by volume. The street cleaner can effectively remove all of them. > > Really? How could one truck hold all of that? They’re not really all that big. It would be full after ten blocks–even without the palm tree things that are always falling. [http://www.chesapeake.va.us/services/depart/pub-wrks/operations-streetsweeping.shtml](http://www.chesapeake.va.us/services/depart/pub-wrks/operations-streetsweeping.shtml) Click on the “Behind the Scenes” video to the right. At about 1:20 – > [@](#): > > When the sweepers get full…we bring a dump truck to them, and we dump them at that point. The sweepers operate so slowly, we just wouldn’t get anything done if we had to drive to the dump site. ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/38 "2010-09-27T15:11:35Z")
Too late to edit, but to add to my previous post: obviously that link wasn’t for Chicago, but I’d bet the tactic is fairly common. Either that or there are large-ish dumpsters distributed around the sweeper routes for them to empty into. I also found a picture of how the common smallish three-wheel front-bin urban sweepers dump: [flickr link](http://www.flickr.com/photos/ilfirephotos/4559719346/#/photos/ilfirephotos/4559719346/lightbox/). You can see, especially on the one in the back, that they can raise those things fairly high – maybe still not high enough to go over the side of a standard dump truck like the (different-style) sweeper in the video. But they could probably empty into the back with the gate down or removed – I see some city dump trucks around with no back gate, never knew why (EDIT: actually now that I think about it, these are trucks that workers usually walk around near and throw branches and other large debris into, but I bet they could use them to empty sweepers as well, though I’ve never seen it. I’m always at work during the sweeper schedules). ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/39 "2010-09-27T15:16:47Z")
And here we go. Found it! A picture of a Chicago sweeper emptying into a dumpster no doubt stashed in an alley on its route: [![Imgur](https://live.staticflickr.com/141/357615798_328caed9ac.jpg "Street Sweeper caught dumping") ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jawspeak/357615798/) ---
**Author:** ![royboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f08c70/32.png) [@royboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/royboy)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665/40 "2010-11-22T01:55:20Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > I assume Cecil was being sarcastic. CECIL???!!!??? “sarcastic”??? I am shocked . . . SHOCKED! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-sweeping-why-so-thorough-incl-link-to-cecils-sd-chi-column/546665.md?page=3)