Story posted Wednesday, January 20, 2010
City Can Salt All Streets, At A Cost
Wayne Zingsheim, public works director for Park Ridge, described the city's snow removal plan and informed council members it would take an additional $150,000 per year to salt all residential streets in the town.
He explained the city has five plans in effect dealing with snowfalls of up to one inch through snowstorms of more than 12 inches. Each level of snow has its own staffing plan and list of priorities to ensure the most complete and efficient removal.
In the smallest snows, the city salts arterial and collector streets, focusing first on streets around schools if it is a school day. They then salt the business districts and the parking lots until everything is "down to water," he said. Then salting is performed at residential intersections to a point 150 feet from each intersection.
Between one and two inches, more workers are called in and plowing is performed, including residential areas during normal working hours. Alley plowing and overnight residential plowing occurs in snows of two to four inches. That snow level also brings snow removal from certain areas of town. Snow of more than four inches means alleys are plowed immediately after residential streets and snows of more than 12 inches add full side street salting and line of sight checks.
"We have made our streets safe," Zingsheim said. "Twenty years ago, we did not salt our side streets at all."
He and Mayor Dave Schmidt said they have received calls from residents asking the city to switch to a "bare streets policy," salting all roadways through the city.
Zingsheim, basing his numbers on 35 snow events a year, said, "We would need to purchase an additional 1,750 tons of salt... about $129,500 more," for such a policy. Because of fluctuations in snow events and the price of salt, "We would need to budget about $150,000."
"That means $150,000 would have to be taken away from something else," Schmidt pointed out.
Schmidt added that some residents have called him comparing Park Ridge's icy streets to the clear side streets in Niles. "We are not Niles, we don't have Golf Mill, we don't have industry, we don't have off-track betting," Schmidt said.
Zingsheim also talked about last winter when the city ran very low on salt and stopped salting side streets entirely. "We found out that we were having less accidents because people slowed down and were more concerned about how they were driving in the snow," he said.
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