Street Sweeping/Cleaning Activities

5.3.1 Highlights of Current Operations

The City undertakes a number of activities related to street cleaning including: • Catch Basin Grate Cleaning

• Road Flushing • Street Sweeping • Ditch Clean-Up

The City reduced its fleet of mechanical street sweepers from three to two. The new sweepers have the ability to self unload. The budget for street cleaning was $488,000 in 2005. This provides normally scheduled street sweeping during the period of May to October and additional contract sweepers during the spring clean up period to reduce the time it takes to cover all the streets in the City. For 2005, sidewalk washing is provided for the DBIA once each week and street sweeping is provided twice each week.

5.3.2 Benchmarking

As shown in the following table, some municipalities use contractual services, especially during the peak demand of spring cleanup and others provide sweeping services internally. This is consistent with the approach recently undertaken in the City of Peterborough to ensure that services are provided on a timely basis. Guelph and Newmarket supplement the City’s sweeping activities during clean up winter sand and spring debris. The City of Clarington is also considering contracting spring cleanup services.

Municipality # of lane kms Equipment Service Provider Service Levels Comments on Spring Clean Up

Brantford 400

2 sweepers and

lease 2 units internal commercial areas 2/year, others 1/year up to 8 weeks

Clarington 1 sweeper

looking at contracting spring clean up

BIA's once a month, all other areas 2

times a year 7-9 weeks

Guelph 851

contract spring clean up

main arteries every 2 weeks,

subdivisions every 8-10 weeks 1,100 hours to complete

Newmarket 250 1 sweeper

contract spring clean up and during year as

needed

Sarnia 460 internal

commercial areas once a month, all

other once a year 6 months

Waterloo 470 2 sweepers internal

Double shifted to get clean up on time. Level of service varies by class

of road 4-6 weeks

Whitby 1,000 2 sweepers internal downtown swept once a week 1 week

Peterborough 840 2 sweepers

recently added contract service for spring clean

up

DBIA 2 times a week between May and October. Spring road sweeping following melt, fall sweeping following

leaf drop until freeze

14 weeks but improvements through use of contracted spring

clean up

With the exception of Sarnia, the spring cleaning completion time in Peterborough is longer than the other municipalities surveyed.

Consistent with the practice in the City of Peterborough, municipalities attempt to conduct street sweeping as soon as possible after snow melt. The longer the sand is on the road, the more the coarse sand particles are abraded, rounded and reduced in size. This generates airborne

particulates that contribute to poor air quality readings. Since the finer particles are more likely to absorb pollutants, prompt sweeping reduces not only the amount of silt levels in catch basins and watercourses but also reduces the amount of pollutants entering surface water bodies. According to research undertaken, for environmental reasons, vacuum sweepers are preferred to mechanical sweepers removing more than 90% of even fine materials and greatly reducing the amount of airborne particulate matter generated by the sweeping operation. Brush-type mechanical sweepers can pick up as little as 15% of fines by comparison. A Canadian report recently released states that a vacuum-assisted sweeper removes 87% of solids when streets are swept twice a week; 51% if they are swept monthly. Vacuum sweepers also collect solids before they get into the drainage system, reducing water pollution.

Other best practice research includes avoiding water-flushing. Flushing directs fine materials and debris into the drainage system requiring more frequent catch basin cleaning. Sweepers that wet the surface to reduce the fugitive emissions and facilitate debris pickup work well and if done on a regularly scheduled frequency can eliminate or reduce the need for flushing.

World Sweepers.com website indicates that for each sweeper owned by a municipality, there should be a primary and backup operator. In addition, the site recommends that where available, larger capacity equipment should be used. Tandem trucks to receive and haul sweeping debris from sweepers, not single axle dump trucks should be employed. Consistent with other research undertaken best practices also includes employing a two shift approach during Spring clean up and where winter debris is heavy and requires two passes, it is recommended to use two sweepers in tandem and make only one pass.

The following summarizes some of what is considered to be best practices according to several articles published in Better Roads Magazine over the past three years:

• Municipalities should conduct street sweeping as soon as possible after snow melt. Prompt spring cleanup may also reduce the amount of incidental debris associated with the sand. Prompt pick up before the sand is rounded and abraded also increases the opportunity to reuse the material for road sanding the following winter by blending a portion of the sweepings, after processing, into new sand.

• Use of a computerized database and street map to show work schedules and details. Schedules can be developed based on the amount of material collected during previous sweeps.

• Track sweeping equipment performance and costs for every sweeper and every operator. This helps determine which type of sweeper is most performance effective and/or cost effective and also tells which operators get the most from their sweeper. Share your data with other municipalities.

• Plan sweeps before water-system flushing or catch-basin cleaning. Sweeping first will reduce catch-basin cleaning costs.

• Sweep streets that have been salted and sanded during winter maintenance operations as early as practical to prevent these materials flowing into the drainage system.

• Sweep residential streets in the spring to remove sand and salt and in the fall to remove leaves.

• Some cities use double shifts in the early spring to reduce salt and sand movement into the drainage system.

• Some municipalities such as the City of Hamilton try to avoid parked-car problems, which reduce sweeping efficiencies, by posting no-parking signs for the sweeping day, i.e. the first Monday of the month.

• Find and hire skilled sweeper operators. Use them one-on-one to train new or less- experienced operators. Apply the same rule to sweeper maintenance personnel. Create an internship program for sweeper crews.

• Use a primary and backup operator for each sweeper rather than rotating equipment assignments. This helps them feel responsible for the equipment and take pride in using it well.

• Schedule double sweeper shifts in the spring when it is important to remove sand and salt before it is washed into storm sewers and holding ponds.

• If winter debris is heavy, use two sweepers in tandem, making one pass. Alternate sweepers, so each has a turn at heavy load/lighter follow-up load in the cycle.

Another article in the Better Roads Magazine 2003 profiled the City of Hamilton which looked at different methods of street cleaning and how effectively each reduced inhalable particulate over a six week period. After completion, the study team concluded that sweeping/vacuuming/flushing three times a week does the best job of reducing particulate. However this frequency is very expensive and not viewed as a practical approach to providing the service.

5.3.3 Gap Analysis

The most common Councillor complaint in the roads operations was associated with the spring clean up efforts on street sweeping. Councillors indicated that to get the streets cleaned with the existing equipment, it would take approximately 14 weeks, which was unacceptable from a citizen perspective. As a result of the significant number of complaints, two vacuum contract cleaners were hired which was not originally part of the operating plan. In 2006, the City intended to contract for at least 6 additional contract units for the spring clean up however due to the mild winter conditions, this was not needed.

5.3.4 Street Cleaning Activities – Service Delivery

As shown below, approximately 7.4% of the staff time is allocated to street cleaning activities. All activities are potentials for alternative service delivery (5.13 FTE).

Activity Code Activity Name Non - Core Rationalized ASD Full Time Hrs Part Time Hrs Total Hrs % Full Time Total Estimated FTE % of total PW hours

PW15-13 SC Catch Basin Grate Cleaning 942 260 1,201 78.4% 0.71 1.0%

PW15-3 SC Road Flushing 559 188 747 74.8% 0.44 0.6%

PW15-5 SC Street Sweeping 2,079 2,253 4,332 48.0% 2.55 3.7%

PW15-7 SC Ditch Clean-up 11 11 100.0% 0.01 0.0%

PW15 Street Cleaning - Other 1,420 1,019 2,439 58% 1.43 2.1%

5.3.5 Street Sweeping/Cleaning Recommendations

That the City continue with the current Street Sweeping service delivery model of using internal services for routine sweeping and external services to assist during spring clean up.