When does the street sweeper come? For 2026, Chicago published the answer as a file, and here it is read whole: 837 ward sections across all 50 wards, carrying 8,545 scheduled section-sweep dates from April 1 through November 20 — and as of September 7, 2,721 of those dates are still ahead. The city’s program page says Chicago “uses mechanical street sweepers to remove debris and litter from streets every year beginning April 1st through the Fall season,” and the schedule file’s own description adds the caveat this page keeps attached to every number on it: “Corrections are possible during the course of the sweeping season.”
Street Sweeping Schedule — 2026 (u5ai-3efk), 4,134 rows, one per ward section per month with that month’s scheduled dates, retrieved September 7, 2026; the whole file was downloaded and every date parsed — 8,545 section-sweep dates in all, zero malformed entries · a schedule records intent, not completion, and no enforcement or fine figure appears in the file or on this pageWhy one answer can’t cover your block
The schedule’s unit is not a street but a ward section — 837 of them, numbered within each ward. Which section a block sits in takes a lookup (linked below), and the dates come with a convention the city’s page states plainly: “one side of the street (East/West or North/South) will be swept on the first date,” and the other side “swept on the second date.” The file bears that out: 3,672 of its 4,134 section-month rows list exactly two dates, and 2,894 of those pairs are consecutive days. And the season itself can shift under you — corrections are possible mid-season, per the description quoted above.
The 2026 season, month by month
| Month | Scheduled section-sweep dates |
|---|---|
| April | 1,165 |
| May | 1,057 |
| June | 1,118 |
| July | 1,162 |
| August | 1,104 |
| September | 1,119 |
| October | 1,111 |
| November | 709 |
The cadence holds near 1,100 section-dates a month from April through October, then tapers to 709 in November. Averaged naïvely that is about ten sweeps per section — and ten is in fact the median — but the spread is the finding: five sections carry just 4 scheduled dates for the whole season, while two sections in Ward 2 — sections 04 and 05, as the file numbers them — carry 66 each. By ward, the totals run from Ward 41’s 322 section-dates down to Ward 34’s 142.
What the file confirms, and what it cannot tell you
Confirmed, from the rows: the season’s boundaries, every section’s scheduled dates, and the two-date rhythm of most months. What no row holds: which streets make up a section (that is the lookup map’s job), what time of day a sweeper arrives, whether a scheduled sweep actually happened, and anything about parking restrictions or their enforcement — the schedule is a calendar, not a completion log or a rulebook. For what happens on the ground, the city’s page notes that “Residents can view street sweepers in real time using the Sweeper Tracker online tool.”
Where the record lives
Three records finish what this page starts. First, the ward-section lookup the schedule’s own description points to — the map that turns an address into a section number. Second, the Streets & Sanitation program page, which carries the ward-by-ward schedules, the section maps, and the Sweeper Tracker it describes. Third, the schedule file itself, where every date on this page can be re-derived — corrections and all.
The bottom line
Read whole, the 2026 schedule stands at this: more than two-thirds of its dates fell before September 7, and 2,721 scheduled section-sweep dates remain between September 8 and November 20. The median section carries about ten scheduled dates a season; a handful carry four, two Ward 2 sections carry 66. Which scheduled date applies to a given block depends on the section it sits in — the lookup the records above complete — while parking rules and their enforcement live with the city’s own pages, not this file.
Two more questions the file can answer
Is one side of the street swept at a time? By the city’s own convention, quoted above, yes on two-date months — and two-date months are 89 percent of the file’s section-month rows. Does sweeping really run into November? The file’s last scheduled date is November 20, 2026, with 709 section-dates on the November calendar — a reading of the schedule as published, corrections permitting.
- Source: the city’s Street Sweeping Schedule — 2026 (u5ai-3efk): 4,134 rows, one per ward section per month, retrieved September 7, 2026. Every dates field was parsed — 8,545 section-sweep dates, no malformed entries — and every figure on this page recomputed from them.
- Grain: counts are of scheduled section-sweep dates (a section-day, not a street or a pass); per-section figures count each section’s parsed dates across the season; 89 percent of section-month rows list exactly two dates and 2,894 of those pairs are consecutive days.
- Quoted lines: the season framing and the side-of-street convention are the program page’s own words; the corrections caveat is the dataset description’s.
- Not here: no fine or ticket figure (amounts change; the city’s pages are the lookup), no enforcement claim, no assertion that any scheduled sweep occurred — the file records intent, and this page never converts intent into events.
Computed by KCM Desk from the city’s 2026 street-sweeping schedule, retrieved September 7, 2026. If you spot an error, corrections come first.
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