Calgary street sweepers back on the road

It's an annual telltale sign that spring has arrived in Calgary as the city's residential street sweeping operation is back for another season.

The Calgary Parking Authority will also be making the rounds, recording those who don't obey parking bans from vehicles equipped with cameras.

Violators who don't see a ticket on their windshield immediately after a street sweeper cleans up their neighbourhood may not be out of the woods as the ticket may arrive in the weeks to follow.

Fines range from $80 to $120, and vehicles may be towed in some cases.

Monday marks the first day of operations that will take place on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. 

Vehicles need to be moved from the road during designated times when street cleaning is scheduled for a neighbourhood.

A full street cleaning schedule is available on the city's website and Calgarians can also sign up for email or text notifications.

The whole process of tidying up residential streets is crucial to keep roads safe for drivers and stop gravel and garbage from making its way into the storm water system.

The city's budget for street cleaning is roughly $7 million this year compared to $9.8 million last year despite some extra build-up of gravel from this past winter.

"The material down on the roads is higher than we've had in past years. That has to do with some of the cold temperatures we had," said Jim Fraser, a district manager for roads maintenance with the City of Calgary.

"When you have that, a lot of times you need to use sand, the pickle material, to be able to control and provide a safe driving surface, and that creates a lot of material for us to pick up."

The city has nine crews that will be out cleaning up the streets until June 2022.

"We've got two crews in the northwest, two crews in the northeast, two crews in the southeast and two in the southwest, and one down in the central district," said Fraser.

Officials say more than 16,000 kilometres of roadway are cleaned during street sweeping operations each year.