Friday, January 08, 1999
City to double road-plowing force
Residents of side streets complained
BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The city of Cincinnati plans to nearly double its deployment of road-plowing equipment.
After thousands of homeowners on Cincinnati's residential streets complained about the snow and ice still on roadways days after last weekend's storm, the city is adopting a plan recommended more than two years ago.
The city's parks and health departments and nine other departments use smaller, lighter-weight trucks with plows and some salt spreaders to plow parking lots and parks. That equipment was expected to help clear streets, particularly residential ones, during the storm that blew through the Tristate Thursday night.
“Is it a priority to plow streets in Mount Airy Forest or plow residential streets in Mount Airy?” asked Councilman Todd Portune, who introduced the original motion and called a meeting Thursday morning to discuss the issue. “It's more important to plow residential streets.”
There were roughly 2,500 complaints about messy roadways after last weekend's storm.
City road crews say they did the best they could with the equipment and time they had before the ice formed.
Main roads were cleared, but before they could get to the side streets, rain fell and temperatures plummeted. Ice bonded to the street and the weather stayed so cold for days that even salt and chemicals wouldn't break it up.
But that answer still left many questioning how so many suburban communities didn't seem to have a have a problem getting to the snow before the ice hit.
The difference: Other cities were better equipped to handle the last snowstorm.
Cincinnati had one vehicle for every 57.7 lane miles they had to plow. Florence and Anderson Township had more than five times that many, with a vehicle for every 10.9 miles.
Snowy Chicago, which normally has one vehicle for every 14.8 miles, mobilized 1,000 pieces of equipment during the weekend storm. That's four times the normal number of vehicles, giving the city one vehicle for every 3.7 miles of roadway.
Cincinnati plans to arm itself better for this storm.
The goal was to get 100 pieces of equipment out overnight Thursday. That's nearly double the 52 pieces during the weekend storm.
“Hopefully with this new game plan people will see us getting on their residential streets sooner,” said Joe Charlton, acting director of the public works department. He said he wasn't aware of the earlier recommendation.
Fewer plows
Across the Midwest and Greater Cincinnati, police often contact the people in charge of plowing when the first snowflakes start to fall. There's no set time limit on how long crews have to get the snow off the street because each storm is different and streets are considered clear when there is bare pavement.
And cities, including Cincinnati, make the heaviest traveled streets the top priority and work their way down to the less traveled streets. Small residential streets are usually the last ones on the list.
For example, if an afternoon storm comes through, Cincinnati makes outbound lanes used by commuters leaving the city into the top priority. For morning storms the inbound lanes are plowed first, Cincinnati's highway maintenance supervisor Diane Watkins said.
Then the city's trucks tackle major roadways such as Reading, Martin Luther King, Colerain and Hamilton, she said. Secondary or residential streets are next.
Where Cincinnati has been different: The number of plows hitting the street.
Most suburban crews got the weekend snow off streets before the rain and freezing temperatures hit because each plow had a smaller area to cover.
Cincinnati was able to get to the main thoroughfares, but the ice bonded to the blacktop before they were able to clear the slush away.
The city has 3,000 miles of road to clear, roughly equivalent to the distance from New York City to Los Angeles. One plow was responsible for nearly 60 miles of that roadway in Cincinnati.
In contrast, cities such as Minneapolis which gets more than double the snow of Cincinnati in an average year, there's enough equipment for every 8.2 miles of lane highway.
The smaller average snowfall in Cincinnati is one reason the city hasn't invested in more equipment.
Smaller snow plows cost about $64,000 each. The city can spend its money on that equipment which would be used a few times a year or pay about 11/2 police officers to be on the street for a year.
“It's a trade-off,” Cincinnati City Manager John Shirey said.
Instead, the city has tried to maximize existing equipment by using computer models to help route trucks in the most efficient way. For example, the computer figured out how long it would take a truck would run out of salt and sand and route the truck so it would be closer to the area it needed to reload.
They've also placed weather stations around the city to gauge conditions and decide what is the best mixture of salt and sand for that situation, Mr. Shirey said.
“We've made a decision that we can do a pretty good job with better technology,” he said. “We can gain productivity without adding equipment.”
In an effort to get streets cleared faster, Councilman Phil Heimlich said that in the coming week he plans to introduce a proposal to get bids from private snowplow operators. The bids could include a promise to clear the roads in a specific amount of time.
“I admire the hard work of city employees, but they're not in a system that rewards them for getting the job done,” said Mr. Heimlich, who introduced a similar idea in 1994. “When there are financial incentives, people find a way of getting the job done.”
For this storm, though, Cincinnati's Highway Maintenance Department will see whether pooling equipment with other departments helps them get the job done quicker.
“We're showing the public we're paying attention to their concerns,” Mr. Charlton said. “We're dedicated to clearing the streets.”
Michael D. Clark contributed to this report.
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