Shortfalls paralyze ability to clear streets
Digging out at mercy of ight budgets, hiring freezes
In 1461, England’s King Henry VI fought the Battle of Towton in a blinding snowstorm. By the day’s end, at least 28,000 soldiers had died, and Henry had lost his crown to his upstart cousin Edward.
This was an early example of a wellknown axiom in running a country, a county or a city: If you’re a politician, a snowstorm is not your friend.
Today’s elected officials don’t have to contend with getting troops through swirling drifts, but they do have to worry that the snowplows won’t get to everyone’s street. And the “everyone” is not a figure of speech. Homeowners want to see a snowplow on their block before the first flake hits the ground. Multiply one homeowner by 50,000, and you can sometimes count your next election melting away like curbside slush on a warm day in February.
I pondered the complexities of snowplowing on the afternoon of Dec. 17, about 18 hours after the start of a 22-inch snowstorm. I thought I could drive down my narrow street in Albany’s historic district even though it looked like a plow had either not been there at all or had come through so many hours earlier that you couldn’t tell. My Subaru didn’t make it past the corner. An hour into digging it out of the middle of the road, I thought, OK, maybe buying a house on a street that used to be an alley and complaining about snow is a little like buying a house next to an airport and complaining about noise, but why is it so difficult to get side streets plowed?
This problem didn’t originate with Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan. In my 20 years here, I’ve seen neighbors give up hope of ever seeing a plow and start shoveling their street en masse. (On my street, these group shoveling sessions take on the atmosphere of a block party and have become a great way to meet newcomers.) Common Council members in downtown wards field complaints after every major storm about side streets that got plowed late or not at all.
“I heard from people on a few different blocks. Either they hadn’t come down in the first 24 hours or so, or they went down once,” said Cathy Fahey of the 7th Ward, which has several narrow blocks off Delaware Avenue. “It’s those little dead ends that tend to get forgotten.”
In the 6th Ward’s Park South, “Knox and Dana were not adequately plowed,” said Richard Conti, who represents those streets. “I think part of Park South always has been a problem. The streets are narrow; you have cars on both sides.”
Many Northeast cities, including
Albany, face tight budgets and hiring freezes, and there’s a shortage of applicants with a commercial driver’s license required to operate most snow plowing equipment, even though the city will pay new hires to get that license, Sheehan said. (The mayor didn’t get plowed out on time, either. Her house in the Ten Broeck Triangle has a garage on an alley, and the plows got there more than 24 hours after the storm started.) Global warming is real, but the average yearly snowfall in Albany is 13 inches more now than a century ago, according to the National
Weather Service. Snow may not stick around as long these days, but that’s small comfort when it’s falling at a rate up to two inches an hour, as it did this time.
Contrary to what you might think, Albany does not skimp on snow removal expenditures. Budget Director Michael Wheeler calculates that Albany spent more for this in the 2020 budget than at any other time since 2016 — $1.076 million, which was $242,000 more than 2019. The total under “snow removal” doesn’t always mean the city spent the extra on manpower; sometimes, expenditures include replacing equipment. Even so, at a time when many city expenses have been cut, snow removal remains a priority. But a major storm can stretch even a staff cushioned by private plow operators contracted by the city, and crews may resort to keeping main roads cleared. In the December storm, the state Department of Transportation finally lent crews to Albany when it became obvious the city needed help.
The fact that so few downtown homes have off-street parking is a major factor, Conte said. If just one car gets buried when an owner is unable or unwilling to dig it out, a tow truck can’t always reach it to open a path for plows.
In a city built before anyone had to park a car on their street, residents may wait for plows in future snowstorms. And they’re not alone. Frank Maurizio, who served from 2000 to 2007 on the city council in Schenectady — another place where cart paths became paved streets — said he learned one lasting lesson from years of phone calls from irate constituents: “At the end of the day, what people want most is their garbage picked up, and the streets plowed.”
I heard from people on a few different blocks. Either they hadn’t come down in the first 24 hours or so, or they went down once. It’s those little dead ends that tend to get forgotten.” — Cathy Fahey