Leaf Pickup In Royal Oak: The 4 Things You Need To Know

ROYAL OAK, MI —Fall is here and that means it's that time of year again to do leaf collection. There are some things Royal Oak residents need to know about getting their leaves picked up by the city.

Here are 4 points the city wants residents to keep in mind for this year's collection:

The City Needs Your Help

The large number of trees in Royal Oak make the fall leaf collection a major task; to make it happen the City uses 13 dump trucks, two sweepers and a front-end loader with an attached clam bucket. Crews work long hours to cover the 212 miles of streets twice during the 6 week pick-up season.

Royal Oak officials say the city has to wait until late October to begin the process to make sure most of the leaves are down, but unfortunately Mother Nature doesn't cooperate some years. Also, the city starts at a different end of the city each year as a matter of fairness.

No Street Parking

Royal Oak will post signs in neighborhood streets, just off of major thoroughfares, notifying residents that leaf pick-up will be in the neighborhood the following day. The signs ask residents to park cars off the street because cars in the street can slow down the trucks and make it impossible to pick-up leaves in front of the residence where the car is parked.

"It's important to be considerate of your neighbors," said Greg Rassel, Director of Public Service. "A parked car left out front doesn't just affect one house, the trucks have to go around and sometimes they also can't pick-up neighbors' leaves." Temporary no-parking signs (limit 2) are available at the Department of Public Service (DPS), 1600 North Campbell Road (located on the East side of Campbell, just South of 12 Mile Rd) M - F 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The signs are not enforceable but may help remind people to park off the street.

Schedules for collection

Schedules are available at the Department of Public Service, cable channel 17 on Comcast or channel 10 on WOW, the Insight magazine and on the City’s website. Information is also available by calling the DPS during regular business hours 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at (248) 246-3300 select option 2, then option 1.

How to do your part

Just as important as keeping cars off the streets on leaf pick-up days is removing sticks, rocks, pieces of wood and other hard objects from leaf piles because they can damage propellers in the leaf vacuums which could cause downtime thus delaying leaf pick-up.