A free, unofficial guide to every street sweeping route in Lancaster, PA. Find your route, see your next sweep, and add it to your calendar.
Click any route to see its next sweep date, then drop a recurring reminder into Apple, Google, or Outlook calendar in one click.
Open the mapA short history of street sweeping, why your city is mandated to do it, and whether the tickets are really a money grab.
Read the FAQs“The first organized public street sweeping was started by Benjamin Franklin. He proposed the idea in 1762, and it took about 7 years to get started.”
Dodge sweepers. Avoid traffic. Don't get a ticket. Plays on desktop and mobile, no signup, no nothing.
Play nowSnap a parking sign and the Beat the Sweep app reads the schedule for you. iOS and Android.
Within a few months of moving to Lancaster, I'd picked up two street sweeping/cleaning tickets. That sent me down a rabbit hole: why does Lancaster sweep some streets weekly, and others daily? What's the origin of street sweeping in general? It turns out tens of thousands of U.S. cities run sweeping programs of one kind or another, and I wasn't the only one with questions.
Beat the Sweep is what came out of that probing. It's an unofficial, free Lancaster guide — a map, calendar reminders, and an FAQ that tries to answer the "why's".
The official source for Lancaster street cleaning is the City of Lancaster. Schedules and holiday observances can change — always verify there before relying on this site for parking decisions. Spot a mistake? Email me.