MESSAGE
| DATE | 2010-12-28 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Brooklyn Completely screwed
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December 27, 2010 Choreographing a Snowplow Ballet, to Mixed Reviews
(Again) By RUSS BUETTNER In the cityâs plan, it is envisioned as
something like a ballet of behemoths, with a fleet of more than
2,000 garbage trucks swooping through the streets, brushing aside
tons of snow as quickly as possible. But like most things in New
York, each snowstorm brings a flurry of disagreement over how well
that production has come off.
The blizzard that covered the city Sunday and Monday was no exception.
Even before the high winds and snow ended Monday morning, cries of
neglect could be heard across the five boroughs.
âThey donât care about Brooklyn, man,â said Tito Ernest, 32, who
was trying to dig out a black Honda Accord stuck in the middle of
the intersection of Rutland Road and Rockaway Parkway. âThey had
every chance to come out here to plow since last night.â
The cityâ s sanitation commissioner, John J. Doherty, who oversees
snow removal efforts, said he understood peopleâs frustration, but
he asked for cooperation, patience and a little historical perspective.
Mr. Doherty said that in 1996 it took the city 34 hours to clear
the streets after a blizzard dumped 20 inches of snow, roughly the
same amount that had fallen by Monday afternoon.
âI would like to reduce that time if I could,â he said. âIâll have
to see how successful Iâll be.â
Despite the complaints of favoritism, city officials said their
plan of attack for clearing snow had nothing to do with geographic
preferences â say, plowing certain boroughs or neighborhoods before
others â and everything to do with the type of street.
The plan divides roadways into three major categories: arterial,
secondary and tertiary. Arterial streets are the main thoroughfares,
which are typically bus routes and are cleared first. The next
focus is secondary streets, which are generally the straight roadways
that feed into arterial streets. Tertiary roads, the narrow and
sometimes curved residential streets that feed into secondary
streets, are the last to be plowed.
That means that much of Manhattan, with its concentration of arterial
streets, gets quicker attention.
Within each of those three categories, roadways are assigned numeric
values, which are used both to set priorities and to assign routes.
Those determinations are made and reviewed each year by the commanders
in each of 59 sanitation districts, or commands, which match the
boundaries of community boards.
As a storm approaches, the first line of attack is a pre-emptive
strike by 365 spreaders, each holding as much as 16 tons of salt.
On Sunday, they were deployed before the snow began falling.
Once the snowfall totals two inches, about 1,700 city garbage trucks
fitted with plows hit the streets.
Mr. Doherty said those plows could often move on to secondary
streets as the snow fell, but the snowfall and drifts in this
blizzard kept the trucks on the arterial roadways well into Monday
morning. Plows were also hindered by abandoned cars stuck in the
middle of secondary streets, and in a few cases plow operators
could not see those obstacles through the darkness and blowing snow
until they, too, were stuck.
Further, the department must typically replow where car owners have
shoveled snow back into the streets.
Mr. Doherty said the secondary streets, which he anticipated being
cleared Monday night and Tuesday, presented special difficulties
with this much snow: It can be too much for even a 20-ton garbage
truck, so front-end loaders must pick it up and move it.
âIf you go in there with one of our collection trucks, if you are
not careful, you will get bogged down,â he said. âAs strong as it
is, they cannot push that much snow out of the way.â
The Sanitation Department also looks beyond its own equipment and
workforce, hiring as many as 900 day laborers to shovel bus stops
and sidewalks. And private operators of heavy equipment like
front-end loaders and dump trucks are hired to help out.
Mr. Doherty said that outside operators had been a component of
the cityâs plan for decades, but that their response for this storm
had been low.
It typically takes 36 hours to make a pass through all of the
smaller roads, said Vito A. Turso, a Sanitation Department spokesman.
That timeline would beat a 1994 snow plan by the Giuliani
administration, which estimated that 16 inches of fresh snow would
take three to six days to clear from tertiary streets.
Snow removal has been laced with political overtones since 1969,
when an outcry from Queens over the pace of street clearing after
a blizzard knocked the administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay on
its heels. In 1996, Howard Golden, then the Brooklyn borough
president, accused Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of devoting more
resources to Staten Island, which had been important to Mr. Giulianiâs
election.
On Monday, Peter F. Vallone Jr., a City Council member who represents
Astoria, Queens, said his neighborhood was being treated poorly.
âThe only plow I saw all day was the one that crashed into the
corner near my house,â said Mr. Vallone, who added that the Councilâs
public safety committee, which he leads, would hold a hearing on
the cityâs handling of the storm.
âWe need an explanation,â Mr. Vallone said. âIs it budget cuts? Is
it a lack of planning? What caused this storm to be different from
every other one weâve lived through?â
Mr. Doherty said the cutbacks that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had
ordered in the Sanitation Departmentâs budget had not hurt the
cityâs response. And he laughed off a question about whether
political concerns played a role in setting road-clearing priorities.
âNo,â Mr. Doherty said. âBecause if you play politics, you get
fired very quickly. You have to do your job, and you have to treat
everybody the same.â
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