Street sweeping begins next week: new signage, and change of schedule

With the temps rising, it also means that DC's street sweepers will soon be back in action.



DC has been busy replacing street sweeping signs throughout the neighborhood with ones that not only indicate the day and the week that parking restrictions will be enforced, but also the months during the year. This is a huge improvement as far as we're concerned, because the previous signs were misleading by not indicating that for 4-5 months out of the year, street sweeping restrictions will not be enforced.

However, one thing we noted is that the days that street sweeping will occur on particular blocks seem to have changed. Make certain you take a quick look outside to see if your days have changed. The city typically provides a one week amnesty of parking tickets for street sweeping parking violations, after which time the $25 ticket for violators will be enforced.

More information about DC's street sweeping program can be found on DPW's website.

Street Sweeping Ends October 29

Car owners and clogged gutter fiends, rejoice: street sweeping, and its attendant alternate-side parking restrictions, will cease on Friday, October 29.

This means that, according to DPW's website, "“No parking/street cleaning” restrictions will be lifted and motorists may park along posted, alternate-side, daytime street sweeping routes without being required to move their cars on street-cleaning days."

Street sweeping is ending nearly a month earlier this year than it did last year, and some astute observants may point out that the cessation comes during a year when the District is facing a significant budget shortfall and may be looking for ways to reduce costs. Not so, says DPW.

By suspending the street sweeping program, DPW personnel can focus on leaf collection, which will begin November 8, as well as the upcoming snow removal season. The 2010-2011 leaf season will run November 8, 2010, through January 15, 2011. During this time, leaves will be vacuumed from each street at least twice.

So there you go. DPW will send an announcement around when street sweeping resumes next spring. Until then, enjoy a a season replete with unfettered parking restrictions.

Street Sweeping Suspended in Logan/Shaw/U Street Areas

As somewhat of an addendum to my previous post, DPW issued a release indicating that residential street sweeping would be suspended on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for neighborhoods affected by the upcoming Nuclear Summit, including Shaw, Logan Circle and the U Street corridor. According to DPW's release, the official boundaries are:

-Florida Avenue, NW (northern boundary)
-H Street, NW (southern boundary)
-5th Street, NW (eastern boundary)
-15th Street, NW (western boundary)

You can view DPW's full release here.

Spring must be around the corner - street sweeping to resume on March 22

My, but wasn't this just a lovely weekend. It's hard to imagine that it was only a month ago that we were in the midst of the snowiest week in DC's history. This weekend's sunny skies and near-60 degree temps seem to bring the entire city out of hibernation. Mr. and Mrs. 14thandyou took advantage of the nice weather by embarking on a casual stroll into Georgetown on Saturday, plans which seemingly were shared by half the people in the metro area. Normally, we might be a bit more averse to sharing the sidewalk with so many Virginians and Marylanders, but considering that it was the nicest weekend we've had since at least November, we didn't mind so much. Drinks and munchies at the Brickskeller (and a Caps win) capped off an enjoyable day.

Nice weather doesn't just mean more people out in the dog park and dining al fresco, it means something else to DC's residents: the start of another year of street sweeping. As in years past, residents and others will be granted a one week grace period from receiving fines for street sweeping parking violations, after which time--beginning the week of March 29--tickets will be issued. Considering the mountains of trash and other detritus left over by this season's storms, I'm actually quite excited at the prospects of the city's street sweeping vehicles coming by and sucking it all up. But street sweeping also means alternate-side parking and, most likely, a parking ticket or two for those among us who forget to move their cars.

Such is life in DC, I'm afraid. Those looking for more information about the city's street sweeping program--including the enormous amounts of gunk that gets picked up by the sweepers every year, head on over to DPW's website.

Move Your Car!

Street sweeping with ticketing begins this morning for much of Logan Circle. This year, if you don't move your car to the appropriate side of the street, the odds of a ticket are much higher than before; rather than rely on parking enforcement, sweepers now have cameras mounted on them, and tickets will simply be sent in the mail.

Reminder: Street Sweeping Begins Anew March 23

Ahhh, springtime. The flowers begin to blossom, the temperatures begin to rise, and DC parking enforcement begins ticketing cars who dare fail to respect the street sweeping regulations.

Beginning this Monday, street sweeping regulations will once again be enforced, which means alternate-side parking will be in effect until the fall. And if you think you might get lucky as you have in years past when you avoided that $30 ticket when DC Parking Enforcement somehow missed the car you forgot to move the night before, those days are probably numbered. According to DPW's website:

Recently, DPW introduced “Sweepercam,” the newest application of license plate recognition technology to improve street sweeping effectiveness. The technology consists of cameras mounted on street sweepers to photograph vehicles illegally parked in the curb lane of residential and commercial streets during day and night sweeping hours. The sweeper operator switches on the camera, which photographs the vehicle’s license tag, the vehicle and the vehicle’s position on the street. The registered owner will receive a ticket in the mail that will include these photographs.

Wow, that's a move totally out of the Catbert, Evil Human Resources Director playbook. In fact, we put that up there with the chump move DC is known for in this regard, which is sending the street sweeper along a street ten minutes before street sweeping regulations begin, and then two hours later a parking enforcement vehicle comes through and tickets cars that are parked there.

DPW swears that the program effectively removes significant amounts of trash, debris and pollutants from our city's streets, and they may very well be right. But it doesn't make the parking regulations any less of a pain in the a$$.

DC to suspend parking tickets, er, street sweeping November 30

Rejoice, all ye who do not drive to work and frequently forget to move your vehicles, for the city announced today that the annual cessation of street sweeping will commence on November 30. That means, no more seeing the street sweeper go by at 8:45 AM, and then seeing DC parking enforcement out ticketing vehicles at 10:00 AM.

Then again, maybe you will...

The full text of the announcement is below.

Weekly Residential Street Sweeping Ends November 28

The DC Department of Public Works (DPW) has announced that weekly, (signed) residential mechanical street cleaning will end for the season Friday, November 28, 2008. "No parking/street cleaning" restrictions will be lifted and motorists may park along posted, alternate-side, daytime street sweeping routes without being required to move their cars on street-cleaning days.

Residential street sweeping is suspended for public safety concerns during the winter. Sweepers emit a fine spray of water to keep dust down as they sweep; but when the temperature is at freezing or below, sweeping is discontinued to prevent freezing and accidents to vehicles and pedestrians.

Overnight sweeping scheduled for the District's major roadways, such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Constitution, Independence Avenues and others, will take place as usual all winter, weather conditions permitting. Motorists are urged not to park in these areas during the posted overnight sweeping hours.

By suspending the street sweeping program, DPW personnel will focus on leaf collection and the upcoming snow removal season. Residents and business owners will be notified when street sweeping resumes again in the spring of 2009.

Have Car, Will Get Towed

Around 11 AM yesterday, it dawned on my that my car--the motorized thing that we drive out to Trader Joe's once every couple of weeks--was on the Tuesday street sweeping side of R St. D'oh. I kicked myself for not remembering to move the car that morning, then resigned myself to paying the $30 fine and moving on with life.

That was, until I got home and found that my car wasn't there. We strolled up and down the block several times, just making sure we weren't going blind. Nope, no car. So I called the number posted on the street sweeping signs, and got directed to another number that one could call to get information on whether or not your vehicle had been towed. Mind you, the idea that my car might have been stolen--quite ludicrous considering the car, but you never know--and I was actually *hoping* that DC had taken it. An operator picked up, and my call wen something like this:

Me: I want to see if you have my car.
Operator: What's your license number?
Me: XX-XXXX
Operator: It's on the 2300 block of Sherman.
Me: Beg pardon?
Operator: It's on the 2300 block of Sherman.
Me: How did it get there?
(At this moment, the thought that had entered my mind was that my car had, in fact, been stolen, and that the thieves were joy riding kids who had crashed it somewhere up on Sherman Ave.)
Operator: It was towed there.

So there you go. I should point out that this is far from the first time one of the 14thandYous had forgotten to move a car on street sweeping day, but this is the FIRST time the car had not been there when we returned.

So, has anyone else experienced this? Is the towing of cars to random DC streets a new SOP for the city government, or had we just been lucky this hadn't happened before?

And for those of you wondering: no, I didn't get charged for having my vehicle towed away.

Street Sweeping (and Parking Enforcement) to Resume March 24

For those who may not know (because the city doesn't exactly go bonkers promoting this kind of thing), residential street sweeping will resume on Monday, March 24. This means that not only will the sweeper make a weekly appearance on your street to get rid of the fast food wrappers, leaf detritus and other stuff collecting in the gutters--it means that parking enforcement will be out as well. For those of us along the 1200 and 1300 blocks of R St. and sorrounding blocks, it also means that the olympic event of scrambling for a spot on the "right" side of the street with all of the Sunday church-goers is about to resume as well.

So, game on.

Below is the email sent out by ANC2F06 commissioner Mike Bernardo on the subject.

This is to inform you that weekly residential street cleaning operationsresume on Monday, March 24, 2008. Alternate-side parking restrictionsduring street sweeping hours will be in effect once again. Parkingcitations will be issued to vehicles parked during street sweeping hours inareas posted with "No Parking/Street Cleaning" signs.