City crews will be conducting leaf pickup on the west side of Emerson-Garfield (i.e., west of N. Monroe) on Sunday, November 11 and Monday, November 12, and on the east side of Emerson-Garfield (i.e., east of N. Monroe) from Sunday, November 18 through Tuesday, November 20. Pickup will take place on all those days between 6am and 10pm.

Leaf pickup means that the crews will be coming around with giant vacuum-type contraptions that suck up all the mucky leaves that have collected at the curb in front of your house. This makes winter snow removal easier and allows all the autumn rain and melted snow to drain more easily. It’s a good thing.

Two things to keep in mind:

• Don’t rake leaves from your yard into the street! It’s tempting, we know, but excess leaves will overburden the crews and their machines. Use your green bin instead (collection for that continues until Nov. 30) or start a compost bin in your yard.
• Don’t park on the street on leaf pickup days. Crews can’t vacuum leaves out from under vehicles. The inconvenience of parking in the alley or your garage for a few days will, we hope, be outweighed by the improvements to snow removal and storm drainage.

The full citywide leaf pickup schedule is available here (PDF link). More info on leaf pickup can be found here.