Cleanup of Calgary's streets starts April 14 | CBC News

After months of dumping salt and sand material to fend off harsh winter driving conditions, the time has come for the city to start sweeping the streets. 

Crews will roll out on Monday, April 14, for the annual spring cleanup.

Street sweeping will continue weekdays from 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. until about June 20, depending on the weather, to tidy up more than 17,000 lane-kilometres of roadway around the city. 

Calgarians should watch in their neighbourhoods for "No Parking" signs, which will be in place at least 12 hours before sweeping crews show up.

"The sweeping program [is] very much a collaborative effort," said Chris Hewitt, manager for mobility maintenance at the City of Calgary. "We just ask that people keep those cars off the road, please, so we can do the job and do it nicely."

Any cars found violating the parking rules will be mailed a $80-$120 ticket from Calgary Parking. 

Last year, the city's parking authority issued more than 27,000 tickets for street sweeping violations. 

"The majority of the areas we enforce, it's just a straight ticket," said Charles Gray, patrol and investigations supervisor with Calgary Parking.

"There are some very high dense areas, especially in the core, where we do have to short tow vehicles to get them out of the way for sweepers. But over 90 per cent of our sweeps don't involve towing."

'No Parking' signs will be in place at least 12 hours before street cleaning crews arrive, according to the City of Calgary. (Dan McGarvey/CBC)

The city is also asking residents to make sure obstructions like non-standard driveway ramps, basketball hoops and bins are off the road when sweeping vehicles show up.

Calgarians planning to leave their cars in alleyways on sweeping day should make sure they're parked at least five metres away from the alley entrance to avoid a ticket. 

Residents can plan ahead by using the city's online address search tool to see their scheduled street sweeping date. 

Street sweeping prevents air and water pollution

The program typically collects about 50,000 tons of material, which is either recycled for use in future winters or used as fill in the landfills, according to Hewitt.

Over the winter, city crews dropped around 40,000 tons of "pickle" onto Calgary's roads — less of the salt-gravel mixture than what is typically needed.

"We didn't have quite as much cold and snow this year. We did have that cold spell in February, but outside of that we were able to conserve this year," said Hewitt.

The street sweeping program keeps that material from running off into Calgary's waterways and cuts down on air pollution. 

Street sweeping will not occur on statutory holidays but will go ahead on federal election day, April 28.