No Street Left Behind

Fenty Wants Main Roads, Side Routes Plowed at Same Time

It's pretty much the golden rule of plowing: Clear major roads and arteries of snow and ice first and later deploy trucks to neighborhood streets.

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) disagrees.

In what his city administrator characterized as a "180 degree" change in the city's approach to snow removal, the Fenty administration will not prioritize the plowing of commuter routes over residential streets. The mayor said he wants to take a "blitzkrieg" approach, attacking both large and small streets in the city simultaneously. And his administration has purchased more equipment to beef up neighborhood plowing.

"The mayor is prioritizing residential streets," said Robert Marsili Jr., the city's interim snow coordinator. "The emphasis is to have residents able to move about just as much as commuters."

You're not likely to see it this week, considering the weather forecast, but here's how the plan would work: Approximately 90 heavy trucks would be dispatched to the main roads to make them passable for buses, emergency vehicles and other traffic. At the same time, a fleet of 80 or so light trucks equipped with salt and plows would hit the neighborhoods. For major storms, the city can call in contractors as well.

In putting neighborhood streets on par with major roads, Fenty is bucking conventional wisdom. Other mid-Atlantic cities have placed more emphasis on getting to smaller streets quicker, but they still focus on main roads during a storm and in the first hours afterward.

"Our first priority with snow removal is primary streets," said Tony Wallnofer, deputy director for operations for Baltimore's Department of Transportation.

"Rather than wait so long to go into secondaries, once we have our main streets passable and in decent shape, then we, as soon as possible, move into secondary streets," he said.

James Campbell, a management professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis who has researched urban snow removal, said Fenty's approach will probably please constituents but potentially comes with a high cost.

"I wish the mayor luck," Campbell said. "Citizens may be happier with cleaner streets, but somebody's got to pay the extra budget expense."

The District has a $5.2 million yearly budget to clear about 200 miles of main roads and 900 miles of neighborhood streets all winter. Putting trucks on smaller streets at the beginning of a storm might necessitate several sweeps to clear streets, Campbell said. That can multiply costs and be seen as less efficient.

Fenty, who has traveled the country to seek out best practices in municipal service delivery, said budget concerns are immaterial.