Most Buffalo streets appear passable Thursday morning, after days of city crews plowing the heavy, wet snow. Public Works Commissioner Michael Finn said all streets should have received at least one pass by now.
"I expect that we will continue to see improvements to the side streets all across the city," he said. "The percentage that we're going to be able to be at is really going to be dependent on the compliance that we get with parked cars."
Finn said one big change in the snowplow operation is that there are mechanics on duty 24/7 to keep the plows in service.
"They're maxed out at 16 hours for a shift, by federal law, and then they have to go home and rest for eight," Finn said. "So we stagger everyone's shift to maximize the amount of crews that we have at any one given time, not leaving us at any point where there's no plows on the street. That's not a good situation to be in."
This time the snow that fell was good for packing into snowballs, but difficult to plow — always hard in the Queen City, with its narrow and twisting streets, lots of dead ends and people who tried to go somewhere until their car stalled and was abandoned on a street or in an intersection.
Finn said his crews had lots of problems with those abandoned cars, as they pushed into the last of the residential streets to see a plow, and those stuck cars plugged everything.
"The worst case is stuck and abandoned," Finn said. "If people get stuck and then they're working on getting themselves out and our plows are able to help them in some way, we're always working with residents. But when a car is left and abandoned and we can't find anyone to even move it, that's when we're really getting progress slowed up."
Council Majority Leader David Rivera said his Wet Side street was plugged.
"We have to adapt to all of that and be prepared and that's why there's a snow plan," Rivera said. "The question is how long does it take to get these streets plowed and I know we had 18 inches of snow and we have a lot of streets and I don't know how many miles of road."
It's also the cars which are sort of parked along curbs, but sticking out to the point a plow driver has to stop or slow down to avoid hitting that car.
College Street Block Club member Jonathan White said residents were dumbfounded by city instructions.
"On Monday, in the absence of any plow coming down the street, they were still told that they had to move their car for alternate parking, from one side to the other," White said, "which meant that people had to literally dig their car out of the west side of the street and then dig an opening on the east side of the street to park their car, for fear of getting a parking ticket."
Residents helped each other out, digging out cars and getting sidewalks open. But Masten Councilmember Ulysees Wingo said there needs to be more neighbor helping neighbor.
"We have to be more community-focused, community-minded and understand that this is going to be a community effort," Wingo said. "There is not one department to blame. There is not one elective official to blame. We have snow in Buffalo."
Wingo said he's aware of the problems because he has a lot of those dead-end streets that make plowing difficult in his district, but he also has people who have essential jobs who have to get out and residents who might need emergency assistance. He said cars can block EMTs.
