The City of Orem owns three Tymco street sweeping machines and we employ two full time employees to operate and maintain those sweepers. Our goal is to keep two sweepers in operation as conditions allow.
Over the past several years, the street sweepers have swept the streets of Orem on average about 12 times annually. This service of street sweeping certainly makes the roads more aesthetically pleasing and helps with the beauty of each neighborhood.
In addition to the obvious benefits of beatification, our street sweeping program removed an estimated 2200 cubic yards (200+ dump truck loads) of debris from the roads. Without the sweepers accomplishing this task, most of that debris would have entered our storm drain system causing potential environmental concerns and a substantially increased work load for crews to remove all of that debris from sumps, pipes, and other drainage basins.
The City currently does not have enough staff or equipment to create a weekly or even a monthly sweeping schedule. But there are some things that can help predict the most likely days:
Garbage collection days: Because having to maneuver sweepers around obstacles is inefficient, we generally try to sweep in areas a couple of days after garbage collection has occurred. So if your regular collection day is Monday, a sweeper is most likely to come down your street on a Wednesday. This will happen about every 3 to 5 weeks during sweeping season from March to October.
The most common reason for a sweeper to miss a section of gutter is because of some obstruction. Some common obstacles that our sweepers encounter are garbage cans, parked cars, trailers, boats, RVs, basketball standards, landscaping stockpiles and various other debris, and overhanging tree branches.
The second most common reason is that your gutter is not accessible to the sweeper because of mechanical limitations. The turning radius of a sweeper is rather large and makes sweeping tight corners and some cul-de-sacs impossible.
One other reason is that the street in question is not owned nor operated by the City. This is true of large state highways like 800 North and State Street, but it also affects some Private developments like Northridge and even UVU or the Canyon Research Park.
The best thing you can do to make things easier for sweeper operators is to make sure that your gutter is clear of obstacles. Here are some tips:
- Park on your driveway.
- Keep large objects out of the street.
- Have landscaping stockpiles dumped on your driveway or a tarp on your lawn.
- Keep tree branches trimmed so they don’t hang out over the street.
- Make sure your garbage can is promptly removed from the street after the trash has been picked up.