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The City of Calgary will start clearing streets of sand, gravel and debris starting on Monday with the launch of its annual street cleaning operations.

Street sweeping will begin on April 20 and continue through July. Residential street sweeping typically happens Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., while major roads are swept overnight to reduce the impact on traffic.

During the annual spring cleanup, crews remove debris from over 16,000 kilometres of city streets.

When street sweeping is set to happen in a residential community, the City of Calgary says officials will set up signage warning people at least 24 hours in advance.

On Friday, Calgary’s director of roads Troy McLeod said the street sweeping service is experiencing a number of changes this year.

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The first is a change in times that vehicles must be off the streets. McLeod said as long as sweepers have gone by, residents are welcome to move their cars back to the road before 4 p.m.

“We’re tightening up the time that you have to have vehicles off the streets,” McLeod said during a media availability on Friday afternoon.

“As soon as we go through there you can put your cars back out.”

He added that there will also be a change in fines related to failing to move your car ahead of the street sweepers. McLeod said residents will have the opportunity to sweep the area and leave the bags of waste for collection, should they not be able to move their vehicle in time.

“We won’t be issuing any tags,” McLeod said.

“Instead, you’ll have the opportunity to sweep that up later and put them into bags.

“Moving vehicles is the best way to do it, but if you are unable to then there is another opportunity to clean that up.” Tweet This

McLeod said licence plate numbers of any vehicles that are not moved in time will be kept on file, and officials will return to those areas in July to collect the bagged waste.

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If the area has not been swept, McLeod said drivers will then face tickets for failure to comply.

The penalty for leaving your vehicle on the street when it’s scheduled to be swept is $120 but that drops to $80 if you pay it in the first 10 days.

Calgarians can visit Calgary.ca/sweep to find out when their street will be swept, and to sign up to receive email and/or text message notification 24 hours before their street is scheduled to be swept.