In a winter of unrelenting cold and regular, periodic snowstorms, the snow keeps piling higher and the frustration of Downtown merchants has been mounting.
While merchants might be expected to shovel their own walks, there's nothing they can do, realistically, about the mounds of snow that gets piled up between parking spaces and sidewalks. It takes the city's heavy equipment to move that much snow.
At Monday's City Council meeting, Director of Public Works Sally Kuzon addressed the issue.
"We certainly understand (the complaints)," Kuzon said. "We would love to have a 24-hour operation, but we just can't do it."
This season so far, 90 inches of snow has fallen, including 52 inches in the past 13 days.
That has kept public works staff busy plowing and salting, often in 10-hour, overnight shifts.
That leaves at most two public works employees on the clock during the day.
"That's a little scary if something happens," Kuzon said.
Crews that are plowing and salting aren't available for the tedious, time-consuming, manpower-intensive task of snow removal.
Snow removal needs to be done at night when there is less traffic, fewer parked cars and no pedestrians to interfere with the operation. The project takes from 10 to 12 public works employees at a time.
And it ties up all of the city's loaders and trucks.
It so happened that crews started working on snow removal for the first time this winter last night.
The project was scheduled to start at 10 p.m., but before the workers could hit the streets, the plows and salters from the trucks needed to be removed. It also turned out two trucks had flat tires.
The work started just before midnight.
Crews cleared the south side of Main Street, Court Street and the parking lot near Jackson Street (where we caught up with them for photos at 5:30 a.m.).
Tonight, they will work on the north side of Main Street.
Weather permitting, they will work on Ellicott Street the night after that.
Has anybody seen a sidewalk
Has anybody seen a sidewalk plow? The south side is in terrible condition and I feel for students having to walk to school in the streets is far more important than the piles along downtown, not to mention the mail man. I seen on the news last evening that in the city of Buffalo they have been sending $ 100.00 fines out to residents that fail to keep their walkways clear of snow, great idea!
I would like to thank the Buell st neighbors for keeping the fire hydrant clear of snow saving precious minutes incase of fire.
I'm not positive but I
I'm not positive but I thought the city of Batavia put the sidewalk cleaning responsibility on the home owners. It's just a matter of time before someone gets hit walking on the side of the road.
Jack, They did but they still
Jack,
They did but they still charge us tax money to have a city sidewalk plow run the sidewalks. So we are on the hook for the gas and/or food it costs us to fuel the removal of that snow the first time plau tax money to remove it a second time.
Unfortunately, it is the
Unfortunately, it is the homeowners responsibility to clear the sidewalks. With the amount of snow we have had, there are 2-3 people left to work in the BOM because the rest are all working the crazy shift hours to plow your streets and now do snow removal AND have to contend with more snow coming. The sidewalk plows are a courtesy but when the priority is maintaining the streets, streets come first especially for a need for emergency vehicles.