Street Sweeping Changes Coming to the South End

Residents will likely see changes to the weekly street sweeping schedule next year in addition to an expansion of the program in the neighborhood.

The city is planning to introduce to the South End next year as part of a pilot program already tested in the North End. Street cleaning will begin in March of 2012 instead of April and last into December, weather permitting, according to Frank O’Brien, Assistant Commissioner of the Department of Public Works.

The winter pilot program was initially slated to begin this year, but was after the city decided to alter other aspects of the program as well. Public Works is now planning to switch around the neighborhood’s street sweeping days to better coincide with trash pick-up.

“We’re trying to get everything more uniform,” O’Brien said at a neighborhood meeting earlier this month. “We want [to sweep] as close to trash and recycling day as we possibly can.”

The department has also fielded requests for the program to include the fifth week of each month, when appropriate, O’Brien said.

Once all the changes are finalized, which should be by February of next year, the city will start an “aggressive” outreach campaign to alert residents to the new regulations, O’Brien said. All 13,000 street sweeping signs in the South End will be changed accordingly.