News

City in overdrive for spring cleanup

As Madison’s record amount of snow melts away and unveils garbage, sand and salt, the city is now focusing their efforts on spring cleaning to rejuvenate the dirty, hard-hit sidewalks, streets and parks.

“Generally our staff will get out into the parks a few weeks prior to this, but winter just ended, so we are delayed by a few weeks,” said Laura Whitmore, Madison’s parks community relations coordinator.

Thursday the street crews began their 16-hour day cleanup efforts to rid the streets of the 15,000 tons of sand used this winter to thaw the icy streets and sidewalks.

“We’ve got our street sweepers working double shifts, including a midnight shift, [and] we will continue doing this for at least another couple of weeks and then cut back to our regular schedule of eight-hour days,” said George Dreckmann, spokesperson for the city streets division.

Leaves and garden waste collection as well as brush collection will be kicked in full time starting Monday. Both services will continue through October, Dreckmann added.

The street department is also focusing damage control on the potholes and cleaning streets. Around 59,000 potholes have been fixed thus far, Dreckmann said.

“The asphalt plants haven’t made the asphalt yet, so [the potholes] are still being filled with temporary materials. Hopefully in another two weeks we will be able to start using permanent material,” Dreckmann said.

Citizens, as well as students, are strongly encouraged to partake in the spring cleaning efforts.

“We rely a lot on citizens to help us out,” Whitmore said.

The annual “Earth Day Challenge” will be held April 19 for citizens looking to get involved. Participants can help pick up trash up and down sidewalks and in and around their neighborhood.

“In general around 1,500 people help pick up trash, and a couple hundred students have already signed up for various projects.” Whitmore added. “All the University of Wisconsin parks are already assigned workers. [However] we have 260 parks in the city, so there is a lot to go around.”

The city looks to assign students to parks near bus lines for added convenience and to encourage campus participation.

“Students can [also] get out and pick up material in their neighborhood,” said Dreckmann. “Come May, after commencement, we will post the streets that many students live on for no parking so we can do special sweeping, but by that time a lot of the material will have already washed into the lake.”

For more information on how to get involved in “Spring Cleaning ‘08,” visit www.cityofmadison.com/residents/spring/.