What Every Crystal Street Sweeper Wants You to Know
Crystal street sweepers have a big job ahead of them every fall.
Sweeping up autumn’s leaves are top priority. The goal is to get them up and gone before the first snowfall, which could come any time now.
“It’s a pretty big job. We start mid-October, our fall sweep, and try to get through the city a complete full time, which takes a little over a month. Try to get through twice if we can. So were basically sweeping till the snow falls,” said Bill Bowman, Street Superintendent for the City of Crystal.
City workers have been at it now every day since the leaves have begun to fall.
Want to help a Crystal Street Sweeper?
“Keep cars off of the street. Garbage cans off the street. They can also adopt a drain,” said Bowman.
Follow this link to the adopt-a-drain website.
“So we have about 90 miles of streets that we maintain,” said Bowman.
Now, stop to think that, each side of the street has a gutter that has to be swept. That’s a hundred and eighty miles of street at about the pace of a brisk walk.
“And the sweepers only go so fast, otherwise they’re not going to pick up any of the leaves,” reminded Bowman.
Crystal has two street sweepers and chances are by now you’ve probably seen one out and about. There is no schedule for specific streets that are going to get swept on a certain day. They’re working as fast as they can. Going as far as they can each day, at only five to seven miles an hour.
“Our sweeping hours are 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. So anytime between then if cars can be off the road, garbage cans,” said Bowman.
So help the city make a clean sweep this fall and enjoy the autumn colors while they last.
