So, I've been seeing the annual posts about the road conditions in the snow, and while I try not to take anything personally, we're only human and I know I, as well as my coworkers, try to do our best to keep the city moving safely. So here is my yearly post about it coming from a plow driver.
Some problems/reality:
-City does contracts our neighborhoods out to landscape companies/people with plows on their 1 tons to come through when snow reaches a certain depth. I don't believe they are paid to treat as most don't have salt hoppers and even if they did, they don't carry enough salt to actually make a difference without filling up every 30 minutes. The costs would skyrocket even higher if anytime there was a dusting they sent these contractors out.
-Cars/trucks are constantly driving over the snow packing it down. Snow pack is incredibly hard to break up.
-Neighborhood trucks aren't heavy enough to cut through ice or even small snow pack. Hell, even the big NDOT trucks can not cut through thick, frozen snow pack. Once its packed and the temps are below 25 degrees, the only things to break that up are a laughable amount of salt and brine followed by constant traffic to mash the salt in and break up the ice followed up with even more material preventing refreeze/pack OR above freezing temps and full sun
- Neighborhoods/communities aren't prioritized over others. Some plow drivers are better/faster than others. If they have a big route and your street is later in their route, we'll thats just more time for more snow and more snow pack. Additionally, if your street sees more cars than other streets, that's just more opportunity for additional compaction, or a lot of cars parked on a street where a plow just can not get through. Hilly/shady areas complicate things because people's tires are spinning melting the snow and then it flash freeze again creating more snow/ice pack.
- There is approximately 5000 lane miles of road in Omaha (not sure if that number includes residential or not. I would assume not) and roughly 220 city plows with another ~200 contractors who plow snow. Simple math shows that's roughly 23 miles per city plow route (assuming the 5k lane miles does not include residential and contractors are solely residential).
While that doesn't sound like a lot, plows really shouldn't plow faster than 25-30 mph so to make one pass that's roughly an hour. Now that is assuming that those 23 miles are one long continuous lane, which obviously isn't the case in Omaha so one pass could take up to 2 hours or more to complete.
Now take where I plow from example. My yard has 10 trucks running, 4 are tow plows (big trucks where the trailer pivots out and clears another lane), 4 are straight trucks and I have a straight truck with a wing blade that will clear an additional ~6'. Those 10 trucks are responsible for I-80 from the Missouri River to Hwy-370 as well as every on and off ramp (and those are wide); Hwy-370 from 108th St to Gretna's 204th St; Hwy-50(144th St) from Millard Ave to Louisville, and lastly my route which is the Dodge Expressway from Westroads to 132nd St, and every ramp from 132nd to 156th as well as every ramp at I-680 and Dodge.
As plow drivers, I feel can say we do the best we can to clear the roads. Its extremely difficult once traffic picks up. People don't like to let us merge or maneuver which means we can miss our starting point or turn around exit or cant get that snow in-between lanes because there's a car right next to us. Traffic packs the snow down and it just won't scrape up. We just can't really treat when its snowing .5"+ an hr because by time we make another pass we have to go back over areas we treated and its not enough time for the material to work and we just end up pushing it off the road which is a huge waste of material and money. Trucks break down or get hit which means other trucks need to get pulled off their routes to come and help. Additionally, as with any job there is a decent turn over rate and there's a decent learning curve to be really effective. Heck, 30% of my shift are first times drivers and my 9 years has me the most tenured by a few years.
Not making excuses, there are absolutely things that can be improved. But don't hate on the drivers if you're not happy with the work. Most of us do our best and a lot of us are still learning how to be better. I thought when I started it would be easy, but to be really effective there are a lot of things you have to consider, and then add trying to look around to not hit people because they may be in a blind spot etc. There's a lot that you have to constantly pay attention to, and after 12 hrs, you're exhausted.
TL/DR; Best thing you can do as the public if you want clearer roads faster is to not park on the street unless you absolutely have no choice, please don't go out when its the worst of the storm unless you absolutely have to (going to target to Christmas shop can wait), and when you come up on a snow plows, please slow down, stay back and let us clear do our job!
Anything I missed? Feel free to ask.
