Street sweeping underway in downtown with shift to residential soon

The sand, dirt, gravel, garbage, and debris littering the streets of Swift Current will be tackled by City crews over the next month.

Swift Current's Streets and Roadways Department started its street sweeping program this week in the downtown core. They'll move onto the main arterials next week and then finally into the residential areas on May 6 weather permitting.

Greg Parsons, the general manager of infrastructure for the City of Swift Current, said everything the sweeper's pickup is then taken out to the landfill by trucks.

"It's got leaves, cups, and a bunch of debris in it so it doesn't really work to reuse it as sand," he said.

The City has three street sweeping units but they have to be careful with their workload and deployment of them.

"They're pretty high-maintenance units," he said. "Sometimes you have downtime with one but the main priority is to keep two of them going in each area so that we can get the areas done according to our schedule."

Swift Current has 15 zones for the residential street sweeping program that's expected to be completed on May 23 weather permitting.