"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in message
...
On 1/26/2016 9:38 AM, Robert Green wrote:

Usually, since my street starts with an "A" we are the first to be
plowed
out, usually way ahead of everyone I know. So I really can't complain.
I
actually could get out through my neighbor's plowed out driveway which
is
separated from mine by a narrow strip of lawn. I think they realized
that
and dropped me to the bottom of the list because there are others who
don't
have a similar option and are still snowed in. I have friends whose
streets
have YET to see a plow.

Do you really think that is true? Aardvark street gets preference over
Underwood street?

I know it's true because I know people in the neighborhood north (B to Z) of
me and that's the way they do it here. They collect the trash in the same
pattern. The streets are aphabetically ordered with the first bank being
one syllable names ("A" street) the next tier get two syllables, "Alpha"
street, the third "Apache" street, etc. It sucks to live on Zinnia St. for
sure.

The streets department has a plan in place that does not take street
names into consideration. It has much to do with what is on the route,
hospitals, fire house, steep hills, etc. Nor to plow drivers assess the
driveway of individual houses to see if they have an alternative way out.

Not sure how you can say that without interviewing them, but I've had more
than one truck stop, look at the mound and move on. That's consistent with
my reporting the problem and them deciding upon exception it's not bad
enough to warrant time moving it. I'll ask these questions of the public
works manager after the cleanup's complete.

I am pretty sure from where they've dumped the snow piles that they DO take
into consideration who they are blocking. They didn't block my neighbors
who were shoveling out the day it snowed and they reported to me that they
asked the driver not to block my driveway. Can't verify that, of course,
but in general the drivers move the snow to the closest out of the way place
they can find. On my street there's not much space to move it to. Since I
wasn't even starting to dig out at that point, I got the prize.

The areas hardest hit with this last storm are in areas that usually get
moderate snowfall, thus they don't have the equipment to take on 20+
inches and clear it all in hours.

They made that clear on their website - it would take days before "special
problems" like mine would be addressed as there are more important "targets"
to clear completely.

On the news last night a woman from Queens was complaining about the
lack of plowed streets. She said they were last because they were
black. I'm sure Manhattan, a major financial hub for the world, gets
priority over Queens.

And as you noted, so do public buildings and other priority locations
although most hospitals I know of have their own snow-clearing equipment and
don't depend on contractors or the government because they're not reliable
enough. Some buildings do depend on contractors, like my friend's apartment
complex that was so socked in that the managers said they would pay for a
cab for any resident who was still snowed in and couldn't drive. This kind
of storm strains resources to the max. Luckily we got a completely
unexpected "practice storm" the night before that woke them all up.

--
Bobby G.