Street Sweeper

Rain doesn't do a good enough job. You need scrubbing.

jespah-

Thank you.

I wonder if there are any cities that don't use sweepers. I wonder if you can tell which cities don't use sweepers not from official records but from looking at the streets.

Rain doesn't remove the oily film from automobiles, nor does it remove the tons of trash people throw in the street or all the leaves, sand and soil that washes off the landscape and into the streets when it rains..

But none of that is why most cities use street sweepers. They use it to clean up all that stuff before it rains, clogs street drains and causes local flooding. It keeps the drains clear and prevents the stuff from adding to the pollution of our waterways.

Here in Albuquerque, they only do street sweeping the day before rain is expected. The street sweeping schedule is more reliable than the weather reports when it comes to rain prediction for the various geographic areas of the city.

Plus, the drainage system here is quite odd to a former drainage designer. Admittedly we had more rain in my southern california area, but not all that much more many years, and it tended to show up all at once.

Also I haven't toured our area with explainos by whatever department in Abq covers this, so more of it may make sense that I perceive it.
At least with my place and a friend's place, contractors drained to the back door, and I'm afraid I take that as tipico.



But back on regular drainage, much explained by above posters matters.

ossobuco-

Thank you.

However, it was difficult to read and understand. I'm not sure that I understood it all.

Some places have better drainage systems than others.
I'm used to quite good drainage systems and somewhat participated in all that.

I now live in a place that seems ignorant, but it is also a different environment, and they know more than I do about this place.

I'm sorry if you do not understand me.
Ask.

One thing i've noticed is the most common form of litter--cigarette butts. Rain doesn't wash those away, and it seems like most of the street sweepers here mostly pick up cigarette butts. Here they use something very like the machines used to clean the turf in baseball stadiums, such as you see below:



(I found an image of exactly the machine they use here, but it would have stretched the screen, and i'm not going to spend all morning looking for an image.)