City, State Prepare For First Snowstorm Of Winter
City Debuts ‘Plow Tracker’ App To Follow Plow Progress
A snow plow waits next to Wrigley Field for the first flakes of snow Thursday morning
Get ready Chicago drivers, we’re finally going to get hit with a substantial amount of snow.
Depending on which TV meteorologist you listen to and where you live, we’re going to see two to seven of inches of the white stuff over the next day or so.
Both the City of Chicago and the state of Illinois are preparing for the first significant snow removal challenge of the season.
“We want all motorists to be aware of winter road conditions and encourage drivers to slow down, buckle up, and cooperate with snow plows,” said Ann Schneider, Secretary for the Illinois Department of Transportation. “IDOT winter crews remain prepared to clear state roadways as needed, but we also ask motorists to take the necessary steps to help ensure their personal safety as well.”
Both IDOT and the Illinois Tollway Authority is stocked up on salt and snow removal equipment and ready for the coming snowfall.
IDOT has over 400,000 tons of salt, 3,600 employees and 1,700 pieces of snow plows and other equipment ready to be deployed on Illinois 43,000 lane miles of roadway. While on the tollway, they have 80,000 plus tons of salt and a fleet of 183 snowplows to handle snow removal on the system’s 286 miles of highway.
“We have been preparing for this winter season for many months and are ready to put our plans into action, now that the first major snowfall is on its way,” said Illinois Tollway Executive Director Kristi Lafleur. “While Tollway crews work to clear snow and ice from our roadways, we ask that drive carefully and give snowplow drivers room to do their job safely and effectively.”
Back in the city Streets and Sanitation is on high alert in anticipation of the snowfall.
As the first flakes began to fall around 9:30 AM, 184 snow trucks heaped with salt stood ready to engage the pavement covered snow with snowplows.
This year however, the city is debuting a new piece of technology called Plow Tracker where Chicago residents, much like the CTA’s bus tracker web app, can follow the progress of snow plowing on the roads in their corner of the city.
“Plow Tracker will be an important resource for Chicagoans to see the City’s snow program in action during severe weather,” said Department of Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Tom Byrne. “Chicagoans can see how many plows are working at once, and watch as snow clearing efforts start with major arterial streets and then move to side streets to keep Chicago moving.”
So typical. this is really the first snowfall since the embarrassment of last year’s blizzard, so let’s all overreact! Let’s get all the plows out first thing in the morning when it’s barely flurrying and instantly melting on contact with the roads and sidewalks!
Spot on GLG!
It’s more about public relations than actual snow removal–at least this early into the storm.
Any Street Snow Route Ban Issued Yet?
1/12/2012
Hey John!
The 2″ snow parking ban is very rarely ever invoked by the city. Just because there is 2″ (or more) on the ground doesn’t mean the ban goes into effect.
It happens so rarely, after it was invoked for last year’s Blizzard of the Century, no one in Streets and Sanitation or myself can remember the previous time the city announced it. If I think hard enough, I can probably figure it out, but it was more than 5 years ago.
So, if you want to be safe, park your car on a side street (which I always do no matter what due to a psychological issue we won’t discuss here).
But, if they do trigger the ban, we’ll announce it here, Twitter, etc. and so will the rest of the real media via TV, newspapers, radio, etc.
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