Rifle officials are hoping that changes enacted in the past several years to the citys snow removal policy will position city employees to handle a potentially snow-heavy winter.
An early taste of accumulative snow dusted the region early Monday morning, which led the Rifle Police Department to issue an alert warning of poor road conditions and multiple accidents, while cautioning motorists to be careful on the roads.
Despite the early troubles, no snow removal complaints made their way back to the citys operations and maintenance team, which has not been the case in years past, said Bobby ODell, public works superintendent.
Around this same time last year, the city published a revised snow removal policy that, among other things, prioritized city streets into three categories for clearing snow. The idea, ODell said, was to maximize the limited resources to have the largest benefit to residents.
Priority one streets include major streets carrying the most traffic, such as Railroad Avenue and Airport Road. Priority two streets are heavily used two-lane collector streets serving industrial and commercial zones, such as West and Park avenues. Remaining streets, including most residential areas, fall into the third priority due to lower traffic volumes and generally slower speeds on the streets.
The priority three streets normally are not plowed or deiced until there are 4 or more inches of accumulation, with the exception of sloping areas such as hills.
The operations and maintenance department has three large snowplow trucks and a smaller truck for tighter streets.
A lot of people dont realize that, ODell said of the number of plow trucks. And theyre saying why arent you plowing our neighborhoods? If its snowing like heck, Ive got priority ones and Ive got priority twos that I have to get to.
While part of the intention behind that decision is to streamline snow removal, it also tends to make driving conditions less adverse, according to ODell. When flat residential streets are plowed and deiced, slush tends to remain accumulated in the streets. The slush then freezes and makes it more difficult, particularly for smaller vehicles that dont have all-wheel drive. As long as the accumulation does not become too great, leaving the snow on the flat roads with less traffic typically allows it to become more compact, creating better driving conditions when factoring slower driving speeds.
Its a lot less adverse of a situation to drive on in a smaller two-wheel drive vehicle, ODell said.
In addition to the prioritization policy enacted last year, ODell designated snow storage sites around the city.
During heavy snow years in the past, the city would contract out to a private company that would haul snow down to the operation and maintenance facility. The new designated spots around the city eliminate the need to contract that service out because the operations and maintenance team can push or haul snow to the nearest designated space, ODell said.
While many of these changes are not new this year, ODell hopes they can be useful with a potentially snow-heavy winter.
The annual U.S. Winter Outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows northwest Colorado has a 50-50 chance to both be colder than average and see more precipitation than average. That uncertainty comes after a dry winter in 2014-15.
On a more recent note, City Council was scheduled to consider Wednesday evening a second reading of an ordinance strengthening potential penalties for dumping snow into city streets and sidewalks, that would inhibit vehicle or pedestrian travel. Wednesdays meeting was scheduled for after press deadline, however, the ordinance received unanimous approval on first reading earlier this month.
https://www.rebelmouse.com/snowclearbuffalo/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq1by3meAC4
