Photo 1: A scene from last year. (That’s Prince Baker, James Payne, and Bryan Snider, from left working Greenup Street).
Photo 2: Crews from the General Maintenance Division recently installed leaf-collection equipment on trucks. From left: seasonal laborers Dallas Hedger, Don Housley, and Zach Ackman, laborer Ryan Gribble, light equipment operator Lonnie Johnson, and laborer Prince Baker.
Look here to see when your street is scheduled (and when to move your vehicles)
COVINGTON, Ky. – With blowers and two giant vacuum trucks, crews from the City of Covington’s Public Works Department will start collecting leaves from sidewalks and streets on Monday, following a formal schedule that targets neighborhoods with a lot of trees in the public right of way.
Residents are required to move their cars.
To find out when crews will be on your street (and more specifically, on your side of your street) simply click HERE, and type in your address. Note you’ll be given two dates: One for the north or east sides of the street, and one for the south and west sides (depending on how your street is oriented).
(To find out more about the leaf collection operation in general, click HERE.)
Troy McCain, supervisor of Public Works’ Maintenance Division, said the cold weather will make the leaf collection more efficient than usual and keep crews from having to return to streets later in the year.
“Hopefully they’ll continue to fall. Some years we get lucky, some years they fight us and hold on and hold on,” McCain said. “We would love to get them all the first time.”
Residents can rake or blow leaves to the curb – not into the street – a day ahead of crews’ arrival. Leaf piles should be placed away from obstructions such as parked vehicles, fire hydrants, mailboxes, water meters, and landscaping. The piles should contain only loose leaves and no other yard waste.
City crews will do the work of piling up the leaves from the sidewalks.
“We really encourage residents to mark this on their calendars and follow this timeline,” McCain said. “We have a lot of leaves on a lot of streets and limited resources, and we want to get our neighborhoods looking pretty by the Christmas holidays.”
The City has been doing some preliminary leaf collection over the last couple of weeks to hit leaf-heavy areas, test out equipment, and train new workers.
The formal schedule runs through Dec. 20, but the City will do spot pick-up until Dec. 31. If there are particularly bad areas that were missed, residents can call (859) 292-2292 toward the end of the season to report those.
“We realize that not all the leaves have fallen yet, but rest assured that we circle back and take care of that problem,” McCain said.
Crews will work only one side of the street at a time so residents can park on the other side (or around the block or in their driveways) and avoid getting a ticket. Watch for “No Parking” signs put up 24 hours in advance, as well as sandwich-board signs in highly visible areas.
McCain said leaf collection both keeps the City looking cleaner and is an important part of routine maintenance that helps with storm water drainage by keeping gutters and storm sewers from getting clogged with debris.
“We have to take care of our infrastructure for it to work,” he said.
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