By Glenn Hicks

Street sweeping crews gearing up for big spring clean

May 1, 2018 | 6:00 PM

Get ready for six weeks of dusty conditions on our local streets. Prince Albert city street-sweeping has already started in some parts but the big crew will get going in earnest next week.

Roadways Manager Brent Kennedy said it’ll take about three weeks to deal with the main priority routes and another three for residential areas.

“The biggest challenge is dust,” Kennedy told paNOW. “We’ll have a big water truck out there and wet things down but we can only make it so wet; there’s going to be a lot of dust around.”

After the brutal winter there is far more material to clear away than most years and Kennedy said their 10-person crew will get things started from 5 a.m. Monday. That crew will feature four sweepers, a tandem truck, two walk-behind brooms, a skid steer machine and brooms, and two flasher trucks.

There’s a method to the whole process and it’s not just about cleaning off the road surfaces.

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A City of P.A. sweeper tackles the centre part of Marquis Rd, but the main crew will hit priority streets in earnest from Monday.

We sweep the boulevards with the walk-behinds so we’ve got to get that onto the street first and then the Bobcats gather it all up for the sweepers,” Kennedy said.

Priority one and two routes will be attended to first and then they’ll move out from there.

The material being swept up is not reusable on the roads so Kennedy said most of it goes to the landfill where it’s used for cover instead of sand.

But the bottom line is there’s a lot of sand and salt to shift after that seemingly interminable winter.

“The more we had to put out there the more we need to pick up,” Kennedy said.

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow