So, the City has been plowing roads for years, why didn’t we get it right this time? I actually asked myself, did we do something to piss off the unions, cuz we couldn’t have done this poorly. It’s hard to follow all the spin coming out of the Mayor’s office, but in one of the media accounts I heard him explaining that after last year, they looked at where the complaints were coming from and prioritized those areas. If that was the case, they made a big mistake, perhaps they should re-think that strategy and consider where the most cars are using the streets. But then again, the Mayor’s office likes to take care of the squeaky wheel.
Alders Rummel, Rhodes-Conway and myself sent out a press release today, suggesting some new strategies for dealing with the snow. I’ll get back to that in a moment. After we finalized the press release last night, I woke up this morning to two interesting sights outside my house. The first one I found leaning against the tree in front of my house and I’m guessing it was meant to be a political statement by some unhappy constituent:
The second, is a whole new problem I hadn’t thought about:
Um, where are you supposed to put all those carts when there is also a snow emergency, do you drag them to the odd or even side of the street? And, if we all have to put our carts on the side of the street that the cars are on, where to the cars go? These carts from the buildings on that side of the street were taking up two full parking spaces where cars that were still on parked on the wrong side of the street could have been parked. And if it had been an “odd” day, where would they have put the carts? If they put them where they are in the picture if the cars are supposed to be parked on the other side of the street, how would the plows be able to clear the street?
Anyways, here’s my favorite ideas from the press release:
- Snow action days where the following things happen:
- The bus lanes and bus routes are given high priority for plowing.
- Busses are free to anyone who rides.
- Parking Utility extends the hours of free parking downtown from 1am – 7 am to 9pm – 7am.
- Find new ways to get the word out to the younger people who live in the downtown area. Traditional ways by notifying people through am radio and the print news may not reach the younger generation. We need internet and cell phone based strategies.
- Consider having smaller trucks that work with the plows in the snow emergency zones so that the areas where cars are moved actually get cleared.
And I think Jesse at dane101.com makes a very good point. I think we need to look at the amount of roads were adding compared to the number of plows and staff on the streets.
And after my view this morning, we’re going to have to figure out how to instruct people what to do with their carts during snow emergencies.
The next steps as I see it are:
Alders Rummel, Rhodes-Conway and myself will be with Madison Metro, the Parking Utility, Streets and the Mayor’s Office to work out some of the details of our plans and then we will propose any resolutions or ordinances that might be required.
Meanwhile, to the snow plow driver that just went by and very noisily dropped his blade right in front of my house on the currently clean driving lane and likely took a chunk out of the new road before raising the blade a few feet further down the street, it’s not about you. Don’t take it so personally. If you look at the solutions we suggested, it has more to do with policy than the quality of the work being done by the hard working city employees.
