February 4, 2008
Fenty Has a New Snow Removal Strategy
Mayor Adrian Fenty will adopt a different approach to removing snow from District streets after a winter storm - one that places a bigger emphasis on residential streets instead of putting them on the back burner until the main roads have been plowed. The Washington Post's copy editors get a gold star for dubbing this plan "No Street Left Behind".
The basic idea behind Fenty's new snow removal plan is to send out two teams of snow plows (and yes, the city has reportedly purchased a bunch more of them to make this possible), one that cleans the main arterial roads, and another that starts on residential streets right away. It's different from the way most other Mid-Atlantic cities approach plowing, but seemingly the only real down side, assuming Fenty can pull it off, is that it will just cost more to do each time.
Who knows if we'll even get to see how this might work this winter or not, given recent weather forecasts, but what do you think of the mayor's new plan to remove snow from all city streets, all at once?
Photo by yonas1
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I'd rather they spend the money on fixing potholes. Some of them are really bad.
This is quite the populist idea, as residents in years past have noted that the commuter routes get plowed but our neighborhood streets don't.
But Fenty has to be careful here. If the trucks are spending all their time plowing a tiny residential street while the major streets it connects to are unplowed then what's the point?
I'm not sure how much we should spend on snow removal. We only get a couple bad storms a year, and the snow removal cost is pretty high.
i don't know if the comment that i entered into the "other" box just gets lost in the ether, but basically...who cares. it'll never snow significantly around here again, we've screwed up the climate enough so that it doesn't matter.
Hmmmmmm. Using our resources to help DC residents. What a novel idea!
Fix the effing levees first
Seriously... fix these things first:
1. Potholes.
2. The uneven surfaces of Rock Creek Parkway.
3. The 16th and U St. / New Hampshire intersection
4. The gap on the Key Bridge (Virginia side I know, but God damn!)
5. The abomination that has become Connecticut Ave. up by Vaci and the Uptown.
I live on New Hampshire and it's almost never plowed right after it snows. It drastically impacts my life in a negative way to have to carefully drive my car one block to get to 16th St., which is always plowed.
Seriously, if it's not over a foot of snow, it doesn't matter if your residential street is plowed right away or not. And it's not like we get a lot of snow anyway.
FENTY YOU WASTIN' MY MONEY!
If the snow removal strategy is anything like their crime removal strategy, the neighbhorhood plows will start in Georgetown and make their way to Ward 8 some time in August.
Wait, the snow removal strategy was "clear main roads first"? I thought the snow removal strategy was "wait for it to melt." I don't think I've ever seen a plowed street in DC, main or not.
I take the bus so I don't care that much about which streets are plowed when. Can we just start making people and storeowners shovel/ice their sidewalks?
Monkey:
In this instance you ain't totally right. I know a lot of folks in Georgetown that say their streets are routinely unplowed.
And I think a lot of DC residents have unrealistic expectations when it comes to plowing. We're right on that borderline area where our storms are almost always unpredictable, so it's very hard to plan even 12 hours in advance for a lot of these storms.
Assuming that all streets in DC will be plowed in time for the next rush hour is simply unrealistic. We should plan accordingly.
This could be a decent idea, but you would need to carefully coordinate plows so that you don't have a plowed residential street emptying into an unplowed main road.
You also need to make sure that you don't pull the residential plows from the side streets to plow main roads - because if you do, then what's the point.
I feel bad for the beancounters that have to try to quantify how much this idea will cost given that: a) snow prediction is impossible; b) plowing side streets takes far more time - and is far less visible to supervisors - than focusing on the major routes; and c) the extra OT earned by plow drivers is a heck of an incentive for them to take very careful care to make sure every road is cleared of every fleck of snow. I fully expect the city to run out of its snow plowing budget 20 minutes into the first major snow storm subject to this new policy.
The only time it's really a problem is when it stays cold after a storm -- and the side roads turn into two ruts of rock hard ice before they get around to driving a plow down the road. If they would just say "we're not coming until next week" I'd hire a couple kids to shovel a lane down the street before it gets packed down.
Of course, most of the time, the snow melts within 48 hours, in which case I just walk.
How about we construct catapults that will launch collected snow into the Potomac? Or better yet, launch it into MD and VA. Taxation with representation, beeotches!
Wow. That Diet Pepsi was strong.