By Brian Schultz
The City of Winnipeg announced its annual spring cleanup of streets, walks, back lanes, and boulevards is scheduled to begin Sunday night, April 19.
Because of unseasonal weather conditions and the flood, its delayed the City’s usual planned start of this cleanup operation.
Daytime sweeping will focus primarily on collector and residential streets. Once the regional streets are completed, crews will work day and night on the balance of the local streets. Boulevard cleanup will focus first on boulevards and centre medians along major routes. Cleanup of boulevards in residential areas is limited to areas where there is excessive accumulation of sand.
“Cleanup crews must watch the weather closely in the early weeks of the campaign and stop operations if night time temperatures fall below freezing,” said Bruce McPhail, Manager of Streets Maintenance. “During the cleanup, water is sprayed onto the streets to control dust. When temperatures fall below freezing we can’t use water and are forced to curtail sweeping. Similarly, frozen boulevards can’t effectively be cleaned.”
Temporary “No Parking” signs will go up on designated streets to assist crews in their spring cleaning operations. If you park near one of these signs, your vehicle will be ticketed and towed at the owner’s expense. More information can be found at Winnipeg.ca/publicworks/spring_cleaning.
The $3.5 million cleanup is expected to take four to five weeks and will involve approximately 200 pieces of equipment and more than 500 people.
