Madison Snow Removal. Not Good

I try to refrain from criticism of Madison city government, but this snowfall removal is not good.

It is 4:10 pm, and they are finally getting to the residential streets in our neighborhood.

There are three possible explanations to the problem:

1. The equipment operators are inept.
2. The budget is inadequate.
3. Plowing routes are poorly planned.

The operators know what they are doing. These are the same men and women who were driving the plows five and ten years ago.  

The budget is inadequate. I do not have specific numbers but there are fewer pieces of equipment out there than were in a comparable snow fifteen years ago, and the city probably has 15% more miles of roads. Growth in the city is no excuse; property tax revenues from the new developments should easily cover basic services.

This is all part of a gradual diminishing of basic services. Most taxpayers do not notice it as we get incremental reductions in service each year. 

Over the years, it makes a difference. I saw a delivery truck fail to navigate a city street. Fire vehicles cannot get through. As I write this, a police squad car could not navigate any of our neighborhood streets.

Stop plowing downtown routes. Over the years downtown alders won the battle to cut back on alternate street parking. When alternate street parking was enforced, downtown residents (and that included me) had to deal with the reality of moving the car every other night and deal with the snow.

The gradual erosion of the alternate street parking and the accompanying 'snow emergency' zone has left us with a tropical culture where people are to distracted to deal with the reality of the 'occasional' snowfall.

The result is snowplows go into the downtown and waste time and money trying to navigate around the marooned vehicles.

Forget about plowing downtown. Bring the plows to the east, north, south and west sides where they can operate quickly and efficiently.

The next few weeks will become more miserable and difficult. Keep an eye on Gilman Street. It will become narrower with more ruts. Eventually money will be wasted when the city declares the entire area a no parking zone, all the cars will be towed, and the plows will be unleashed, again.

Plow my neighborhood by 8:00 am or at least 10:00 am.

Comments

[sterling]

I live on the far west side off of South High Point Rd. They finally made it to my street around 6:30 this evening. This has been a sore spot with me for a long time. I listen to certain downtown alders complain about those of us who live out in the "sprawl" areas as if we don't matter, while they lobby for special treatment of downtown.
I've been trying to get Madison Metro to expand down to High Point for five years. If we could get even some services out here I wouldn't be so bitter.
Your point regarding alternate side parking downtown is rather funny to me. I work downtown and since I can't get on the bus I drive. It is already miserable this winter. It took me nearly an hour to get from Mills to High Point Thursday night.

We've got more snow coming this weekend, should be fun!

[Glenn Loos-Austin]

Yeah, I did better than you guys, but they still didn't get to my street until well after noon.

As an aspect of our national problem with infrastructure, this is almost emblematic. If you have 3 or 4 warm low-snow winters in a row, the budget for snow removal begins to look lootable. Like a bridge, or a road, you can get away with this for a while, but by limiting a budget to a "best case" scenario, you end up with a situation where you can't deal with the outliers properly and you have to scramble. This is both more expensive in the end, and leaves everyone dealing with situations that aren't handled quite adequately.

Effectively, this offloads the poor management of city government to the citizens themselves. Clearly, this must result in some overall lack of productivity. Sure, it's only a half day of missed work, but when all the little infrastructure stuff gets added up, the loss of productivity is significant, and that'll be reflected in tax revenues in an almost untrackable way.

[R.E. Schallert]

We Americans are the biggest bunch of spoiled brats in the world!!! We seem to think that everything should be A-OK all the time, no matter what. It snowed heavily, it takes time to get the streets plowed, and waiting just can't be tolerated, no matter what the circumstances.
We pass on this attitude to our youngsters, most of who are nothing more than pampered, over-protected pets! They have to be driven everywhere and anywhere, no matter what.
This country could and should have another Great Depression to make us all really appreciate how good we have got it, right here and now. . . even with the snow.
You Madison area people are a bunch of wimps!!! Grow up! Be men! Get out there and shovel the streets yourselves if need be. Be REAL Americans, instead of good examples of the whiners we have become!

[antpoppa]

Madison has declared that the 'Snow Crisis' is beyond the means of traditional solutions?
The problems with the streets—snow, crime, homeless—are nothing new. The 'problem' is the altered representation of bourgeois perceptions and a chance for broadened political gamesmanship.
Street maintenance, in most cities, is an accepted area of social life, delay and inconvenience are taken for granted. In Madison it becomes a matter of justice and political intervention.

I love this city!!

[A.J. Love]

Interesting. In my neighborhood (Monroe Dudgeon) it seems the streets were plowed fairly early. My wife made it into work on Friday morning driving from Monroe Street to downtown, all on plowed roads. I recognize it does take awhile to get to all the side streets in town. Looks at Chicago, that's where the real "crazy lack of snow-plows" story resides...

[Glenn Loos-Austin]

Shovel the streets ourselves, Mr. Schallert? That's always a possibility, I suppose. In fact, it suggests several other "improvements" we could make to our civic infrastructure. We can replace the fire departments with bucket brigades, and the police with vigilante justice.

Come on. These are essential services. The reason we have city government is so that this sort of thing can be organized, financed, and executed in an efficient and timely manner.

This was just a heavy snow. It wasn't an unusual snow, there weren't terrible conditions, and there weren't any special circumstances. It's not whining to observe that this is being handled less well than 20 years ago, and should be handled better.

[paul soglin]

I disagree with Paul on this one. Like Paul, my mid-westside neighborhood didn't get plowed out until very late afternoon. With snow of this size, I don't expect it earlier. On a day when schools are closed, the malls didn't open until noon, Paul, STAY HOME.

Or, as many of us do, if you must be somewhere, use a 4-wheel drive SUV-type vehicle to ride above unplowed residential streets. That's why you bought the %$#%*$$$ thing in the first place. Drive a few blocks to the nearest arterial road and you're OK.

I do agree that the mostly experienced city drivers know how to plow Madison's neighborhoods. I also agree re the budget and the routes.

So work at home and telecommute. That's why you have that broadband service.

My garbage got picked up before noon by a smart driver who went uphill w/o stopping and picked up trash backing slowly downhill. My mail was in my box an hour or so after the plows came through. I bet yours was, too, Paul. If any of our neighbors needed help, city ambulances would have made it easily. Police cars, not so much.

- Barry Orton (failing to convince Typepad I'm not Paul Soglin)

[Paul]

No, Sara needed the SUV to get to work. As a hairdresser, the Friday before Christmas is about as busy as it gets. She had to go five blocks before she reached a plowed street.

And we never got mail delivery.

As for my own travels, a package was delivered to campus and I had to pick it up; electronic did not work.

For the trip out Fish Hatchery, instead of the usual route, I struggled to make it the 50 yards from our driveway to Hillside. Instead of the normal route I went east to Speedway to Regent and then out Park...yes the arterials were fine.
But I do not feel safe in an emergency if anything should happen on our street or the neighboring streets.

[Mark F.]

I don't live in Madison, but I do commute into the city and have to park in the Vilas neighborhood and walk to my job on campus. I have to say, compared to last year, the plowing within the residential streets around the zoo has been MUCH better than last year.

[selfredpaul]

I moved here from the U.P. ten years ago and the most striking thing to me that first winter was how poorly the streets are cared for in Madison compared to the those in the small city I moved from. They had better equipment and they knew better what to do and when. Now, if a small city that gets 2-3 times more snow than Madison can do it why can't Madison? I believe it is due to a poor budget, poor planning and poor execution. Whoever supervises the snow removal needs to learn how to do it.

[paulwesterberg]

4. Near record snowfall amount and a storm that did not stop until 9am. Street snow removal budgets, equipment and manpower are based on average snowfall amounts.
Snow plow's first priority is to make sure major streets are cleared, then the DEAD END street in front of the FORMER mayors house(!!!REALLY IMPORTANT since he works at HOME!!!), and then everyone else.

RECORD EVENT REPORT - NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MILWAUKEE 0354 PM CST FRI DEC 19 2008

...RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM SNOWFALL SET AT MADISON WI...

A RECORD SNOWFALL OF 10.3 INCH(ES) WAS SET AT MADISON WI TODAY.
THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 2.9 SET IN 1895.

RECORD EVENT REPORT - NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN WI 1205 PM CST WED DEC 24 2008

...RECORD MONTHLY SNOWFALL SET AT MADISON WISCONSIN...

AS OF 12 PM CST ON WEDNESDAY...DECEMBER 24...MADISON BROKE THE
DECEMBER MONTHLY RECORD FOR SNOWFALL WITH 36.0 INCHES. THIS BROKE
THE PREVIOUS RECORD OF 35.0 INCHES SET IN DECEMBER 2000.

http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=mkx

[paulwesterberg]

btw, great followup to your previous post:

Wisconsin Bloggers: Individually and Collectively Inept, Inattentive, Incompetent

[Ursula Matterhorn]

Our side street was plowed immediately about seven times in fact ( a first)but if my neighbor who is seriously ill wanted to get to UW Hospital which is seven minutes away it might have taken 1/2 hour or more to get her there on the rinks that were Regent Street and University Ave. I do think it is poor planning and money allocated to other things like trimming trees and calming devices//you won't get my husband calm until the snow melts. He is a Union Cab driver who had been a New York city cabbie and thought it was too dangerous to navigate for days. It's infrastructure and emergency planning baby and we are too sedentary and cool to do the necessary things and help each other ouT! I could care less if there is a new ode to boring architecture on the lake, but I do care that I can get milk and medicine and get out to help my neighbors. I have had three days of cabin fever, and ire with the city, block party anybody? Bad mayor bad mayor, I say we bring back public pilloring?