Wilkinsburg’s street sweeper cleans about 200 tons of leaves and debris each year, according to the borough. (Courtesy photo)
by Matt Petras, PublicSource
PublicSource circulated a survey to Wilkinsburg residents about questions or concerns they have in their community. Among the responses, there were multiple residents who said street cleaning hadn’t been completed all year long. We asked about it for them.
While Wilkinsburg Borough did suspend its street cleaning on Nov. 20 for the winter season, the borough says there were no unanticipated service disruptions over the last year.
To address the confusion about street cleaning, borough Manager John Antinori said he plans to resume service come spring with more transparency about its schedule.
Generally speaking, the Department of Public Works cleans every street in the borough twice a month, but there are a few exceptions. Some less-trafficked streets may only get cleaned once a month. Also, if a given street’s cleaning date lands on a holiday, the borough skips the cleaning instead of rescheduling it.
Parked cars can also make it too difficult to clean a street properly, Antinori said. If piles of leaves are in the way, a street may also be skipped.
“We can’t just suck those up with the street cleaner,” Antinori said. “The machine’s not made to handle that, as big as it is.”
Currently, limited information about the borough’s street cleaning schedule is available online.
“I’m going to make sure, when it restarts in the spring… we’ll make sure we communicate that out to folks and have it in a permanent place on our website,” Antinori said.
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