The District Department of Public Works began issuing warnings Monday to drivers whose cars are caught parked illegally in street sweeping zones by the city’s new sweeper-mounted cameras.
Through Oct. 10, violators can expect to receive warnings in the mail a few days after their cars are captured by one of the $36,000 cameras. After that grace period, they can expect $30 tickets, officials said.
Two of the city’s 20 street sweeping machines are outfitted with the cameras, but over the next 45 days, the District is expecting to replace the remaining fleet with new vehicles that include the technology, agency spokeswoman Linda Carter said.
“What we’re looking for is to change behavior,” Carter said.
Department officials said they will not know how many warnings have been handed out for several days.
Every car that is parked illegally on a sweeper route prevents three parking spaces from being cleaned, Public Works Director William Howland said in a January oversight hearing before the D.C. Council.
Street sweeping is a citywide program that exists along several commercial corridors and along 20 residential routes in neighborhoods where 80 percent of residents have agreed to move their cars to allow the sweepers to come through.
On the residential routes, drivers are prohibited from parking their cars on one side of the street for two hours one day a week, and on the opposite side of the street for two hours the following day.
“Our parking control officers are able to enforce street sweeping regulations on only about 20 percent of the routes,” Howland said at the hearing. “Sweepercam would raise that rate to 100 percent, which means more equitable enforcement in our residential neighborhoods.”
It also could mean a windfall for city coffers.
Public Works officials estimated that 90 parking violations occur daily along each of the 20 residential routes, or 1,800 total violations daily.
That rate should drop once drivers begin getting the warning notices, officials said.
Mayor Adrian Fenty identified the Sweepercam photo-ticketing technology as a city priority early in his tenure. Chicago officials approved a similar program last month.
