The Big Sweep

Caltrans workers joke you can outfit a home with the stuff left by the side of local freeways.

Forget the kitchen sink, we’re talking flatware and furniture, says Caltrans superintendent Roger Moody. He runs the service yard here where the rubbish and debris are sorted.

Sweeper trains--convoys of trucks and street sweepers--comb 1,500 miles of freeway shoulder in the San Fernando Valley and parts north.

“People get upset because we don’t go much over five miles an hour,” said Moody.

But, he added, “We try to respond to people and not mess up the traffic pattern.”

The crews and their $180,000 sweepers pick up an average of 40 tons of dust, sticks, stones, ladders, wrenches, zippers, magazines and clothing each week in the San Fernando Valley.

In addition, he said, there is a steady stream of beds, tables, chairs, windows (mostly shattered), doors, carpets, blinds and sinks.

“I found a brand new overstuffed chair on a freeway median one day,” Moody said. “It still had the price tag on it and was wrapped in plastic.”

Before he could move it, a guy drove up and said it was his. The same flimsy twine that was wrapped around the chair was hanging off the man’s car, so Moody let him claim it.

It’s not all treasure out here.

Moody found a body lying alongside the Golden State Freeway north of Castaic. Police later told Moody the man was murdered, and that the killers were arrested in his stolen car.

Another unpleasant surprise is discovering items that might go boom. Caltrans crews find bombs, or at least look-alikes, and the freeway is usually shut down until the bomb squad arrives.

Workers also find money. “Mostly change and some paper money, nothing big,” said Moody.

And once, while cleaning the site of a traffic accident, Moody said he found a kilo of marijuana.

Mostly, though, crews find the detritus you’d expect from the side of a freeway, Moody said.

“Lots of hubcaps.”