EMANUEL UNVEILS ‘ SWEEPER- TRACKER’
Chicagoans already have the ability to track the real- time progress of city snow plows and pothole crews. Now, they’ll be able to do the same with streets sweepers just in time for Monday’s start of spring cleaning season.
At http:// www. cityofchicago. org/ sweepertracker, Chicagoans can access the local street sweeping schedule and parking restrictions, watch sweepers clean their neighborhood streets and even enter their home address to locate the nearest sweeper.
It’s modeled after the PlowTracker that’s been so popular, it’s attracted interest from as many as “30,000 residents at one time,” according to Streets and Sanitation Commissioner John Tully.
“Every one of our neighborhood services now will become . . . much more inter- active with our residents so they know what’s happening in their community,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel told a news conference Friday at LaFollette Park at the West Side intersection of Potomac and LeClaire.
“We can actually target services — not just by blocks and neighborhood, but by home and resident . . . so they can schedule themselves much better.”
Emanuel’s 2017 budget called for forging ahead with a previously shelved, $ 31 million plan to turn 311 non- emergency into a two- way communications system without the privatization that sparked a mini- rebellion in the City Council.
The overhaul is being bankrolled by the sale to a private developer of 18 acres of prime riverfront property near Goose Island that houses the city’s largest vehicle maintenance facility.
Emanuel noted Friday that the “re- invention” of 311 should be completed by year’s end.
“I ran into a gentleman the other day [ who] moved from Boston to Chicago. And he said, ‘ Tell me about your 311.’ I said, ‘ Why’s that?’ And he said, ‘ I called in a street light that was out and they asked if wanted to be notified when it was done and he said, ‘ Sure’ and gave them his phone number,” Emanuel said.
“The street light was done in 24 hours and he [ got a] text back from 311 saying, ‘ We have finished the work.’ . . . He went out to check and did not believe it — not that it was done, but that the information had come to him.”
Last year, Streets and San crews swept 248,475 miles of curb lanes on residential and arterial streets and 4,987 miles of Chicago alleys.
On Monday, Chicago’s fleet of 60 street sweepers will fan out across the city once again to clear the ugly mess of debris left behind when the snow melts.
Tully urged residents to abide by the paper signs posted on their neighborhood streets or check sweepertracker to check those parking restrictions.
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley once planned to use surveillance cameras to ticket motorists who block the path of Chicago street sweepers — and ultimately snow plows.
But two years after the surveillance program was approved, cameras installed on the first six sweepers— part of a $ 7.2 million contract to equip all 118 Chicago sweepers — were yanked out.
At the time, the city could not afford the capital expense needed to ensure accurate tickets.