Philadelphia expands street sweeping program and will ticket parked cars

The Philadelphia Streets Department announced the expansion of a street sweeping program on Wednesday and will begin ticketing parked cars in violation of the rules in certain neighborhoods.

First started in 2019 and expanded in 2020, the 2022 Phase II street sweeping program will take place in 14 neighborhoods, including West Philadelphia — in the area of Parkside Avenue to Spring Garden street, from 52nd to 40th streets. This street sweeping will not extend to Penn's campus.

Sweeping will occur Mondays to Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with exceptions for city holidays, according to the Streets Department website. It began on April 4 and will run until the end of November. 

During this time, parking will be restricted to alternate parking on either side of the street, and the Philadelphia Parking Authority will ticket vehicles violating the rules with a $31 fine. 

Though there have been efforts to clean up the streets, Philadelphia is the only major United States city without a citywide street-sweeping program. In 2001, former Philadelphia Mayor John Street began the Mayor's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative to clean up the vacant lots in North Philadelphia. 

The Phase II pilot program is the first major expansion of the program after current Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney brought it to a halt at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the years, there have been many solutions presented to clean up Philadelphia's trash. Recently, the Streets Department also announced plans to launch a web-based map, SweepPHL, to allow residents to track the mechanical brooms to plan their parking.