City launches annual street cleaning operations Monday

Spring (street) cleaning starts Monday.

That's the message from Bill Biensch,the city's roads maintenance manager.

"We'll have 32 sweepers out on the roadway for our spring cleanup program," Bienschsaid Friday.

The Calgary Parking Authority will be monitoring streets designated for cleaning and issuing tickets to anyone who chooses to ignore a temporary parking ban.

"What we're asking is please remove all vehicles from roads,as well as do not put any garbage collection bins onto the roadway," he said.

"This is an annual program and we're just asking the citizens of Calgary to help usby not placing vehicles on their roadway when they see those signs indicating we'll be in their neighbourhood."

The goal of the cleanup, Biensch explained, is to reduce the dust in the environment, which is hard on both citizensand the rivers.

"It's a positive influence for our river network, which can collect a lot of this dust if we let it go down the storm sewers," Biensch said.

Biensch said there's no lineup of streets that receivepreferredtreatment.

"There's no priority we simply line up our communities and do them," he said.

To find out when your street is scheduled to be cleaned, go to calgary.ca/sweep.

2,100 vehicles towed last spring

Thanks to employing photo enforcement, the city's Parking Authorityissued 11,000 tickets during street cleaning last year, said enforcement managerJoan Hay.

Approximately 2,100 vehicles were towed.

"Last year was the first year we used photo enforcement to help enhance street cleaning operationsfor enforcement, so that was a higher number [of tickets issued] than it was in the previous year," Hay said.

Hay added that the fee for parking your car illegally on a street designated for a dusting is $120.

"There are early payment options $80 if paid within10 days or $90 if paid within 30 days," she said.

The goal, she noted, is to encourage people to take parking bans seriously.

"Tickets are used as a form of compliance. So we're hopingthat people understand that if they received a ticketon their windshields, we hope that becausethis is an annual operation, that the next year they would move their vehicles, so they won't get a ticket [again]."