It’s been a glorious fall, with brilliant, colorful leaves on trees throughout the city, however, those leaves are falling fast, and the City of Missoula will begin their official leaf pick-up program on Monday.

Director of Public Works for Streets Brian Hensel said the leaf collection will begin with area one, which is the Rattlesnake and Grant Creek area, then downtown and west of Reserve out by the Ranch Club and 44 Ranch.

“What we always ask folks is to put your leaves out prior to the day of collection,” said Hensel. “So, this weekend will probably be a prime opportunity to get your leaves raked out into the parking lanes. Please make your piles in a longer narrower shape rather than large piles that can encroach into the bike lanes and the driving lanes. Please avoid parking on top of the leaf piles once the schedule begins on Monday.”

Hensel said this is one of the most hectic times for the City Street Department due to the narrow window of time available to pick up the leaves before the snow flies.

“We’re employing all of our resources, we have four loaders going, four tandem-axle dump trucks, our garbage truck that we’ve converted over to haul leaves which works fantastic,” he said. “It’s a fairly mobile operation so we like to go in and get everything we can the first time through. We’re asking folks to try and not park on the leaf piles so that we can get this done as quickly as possible.”

A full schedule of leaf pickup is available here.

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