Motorists could pay the price during street sweeping
VEHICLES WILL BE TICKETED IF THEY’RE NOT MOVED
Parking your car on streets where street sweeping is taking place this spring could cost you $30.
The City of Lethbridge is starting its annual spring street sweeping program and, this year, drivers who ignore those “No Parking” signs or the numerous warnings received before the cleaners come to their neighbourhood risk getting hit with a $30 fine for parking in a temporary No Parking zone.
“We’ll tow if necessary, but we are going to ticket vehicles on the road that are in contravention of the No Parking signs,” said Lee Perkins, the city’s Transportation Operations Manager.
Perkins said in the past several years there have been increasing issues with people parking their vehicles on roads that needed to be cleaned. In some cases, the roads were not cleaned at all, and, in many cases where parked cars were present, the street cleaners had to go around them, doing an inadequate job in the process.
Last year, the City tried towing cars off the streets as a courtesy, but found too many people simply ignored the No Parking orders. This forced the change in how those parked cars are dealt with.
“The City of Lethbridge is making every effort to make sure every resident in the city knows that street sweeping is going to occur on their street within a week of the doorhanger notice,” Perkins said.
“There should be no reason this year that people are not aware, that we are coming to do street sweeping.”
The City will provide multiple notices ahead of time to let residents know when the sweepers are coming to their street. This will include door notices which will come a week before the sweepers arrive, followed by reminder cards and No Parking signs on the street the night before. Vehicles still parked on a targeted street the day of sweeping will be ticketed.
Each spring, City crews clean thousands of tonnes of sand, dust and debris from about 540 kilometres of roads in Lethbridge.
This helps the material from ending up in the Oldman River via the City’s storm sewer system. It also reduces dust and makes streets safer for cycling, walking and driving. The sweeping is scheduled so it does not conflict with garbage pickup.
“We are in southern Alberta, and it does get windy here,” Perkins said. “This is one of our positive environmental impacts, by cleaning off the streets as fast as we can. The more vehicles that are out of the way, the faster we can get this program done, and move on to other maintenance items.”
The starting point for street sweeping is rotated around the city annually. This year, sweeping will begin in north Lethbridge before moving on to west Lethbridge and south Lethbridge.
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