No Street Left Behind
Fenty Wants Main Roads, Side Routes Plowed at Same Time

By Elissa Silverman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 4, 2008

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.

"I don't think anybody in charge of picking up the snow should be worried about how much it costs during the snowstorm," Fenty said during a review of the city's snow-plowing efforts after a storm in early December. "That could be fatal."

Snow removal is often seen as a critical test for mayors, especially in Washington, where federal government operations are dependent on the city's efforts to clear snow. It's a tricky task, managing manpower and resources.

"It's the variability as much as anything," Campbell said. "You don't know what's going to come, you don't know when it's going to come, and that's why nobody is too good at handling it."

Failure to clear snow in an efficient and timely manner can be damning, and a mayor's presence during a storm can become a symbol of his leadership style.

Former D.C. mayor Marion Barry was rebuked for staying in California to see the Super Bowl and play tennis during a January 1987 snowstorm that crippled the city for more than a week. A 1979 blizzard that shut down Chicago contributed to the electoral downfall of Mayor Michael Bilandic, and New York Mayor John V. Lindsay's reputation was tarnished by failure to clear the snow-clogged streets of Queens in 1969.

As a D.C. Council member, Fenty earned a reputation for having a laser focus on delivering constituent services, including trash removal. But his snow-clearing efforts as mayor have left some residents dissatisfied.

Last February, six weeks into his first year as mayor, a storm dumped several inches of snow on the city. Some complained that parts of even major roads, such as Georgia Avenue NW, were left largely untouched by plows. So were many neighborhood streets.

A CapStat review showed that during the height of a snowstorm Dec. 5, many of the city's trucks remained in the garage. And even though Fenty has purchased more equipment, many streets weren't plowed for at least 12 hours after the last flake fell.

Fenty vowed that would not happen again.

"You just have to overdo it," he told snow program officials.