It all looks good on paper:
The City of Peoria has not established a “Bare pavement” policy for each and every roadway. Bare pavement will dramatically increase our costs as well as negative environmental impacts. If a citizen will drive carefully for a few blocks to a roadway with a higher level of service, travel throughout Peoria can be made easier and safer. Balancing levels of service to user volumes is the most efficient use of Peoria’s tax dollars and minimizes damage to the environment.
The plan was executed to the letter this year, which resulted in excellent driving on primary routes and treacherous driving on residential streets. Many residential streets are a solid sheet of ice, but Public Works and the City Council are evidently okay with that level of “service.”
What the snow plan didn’t take into account was the effect this would have on service vehicles, like garbage trucks. Many residents haven’t had garbage pickup for two weeks now — an inconvenience any time of year, but certainly around Christmas when there is a lot of extra garbage. Here’s the latest press release from the city:
In response to the icy conditions on roads and alleys, Waste Management has suspended residential and commercial collection for today. Collections will resume tomorrow, Saturday, December 27th, for the routes scheduled for collection today.
The icy conditions on roads and alleys are due in no small part to the city’s planned neglect of them, per the snow plan. The icy conditions are so bad that even the city’s snow plows are having trouble getting through neighborhoods now. Here’s another press release:
City crews are treating residential areas with a sand/salt mix to increase traction. Progress is delayed due to most inclines, that will force the salt truck to back up the street to prevent sliding.
If the snow plows can’t get through without sliding, how well do you think the average motorist is able to navigate these streets to get to “a roadway with a higher level of service”? Snow plows, garbage trucks, even Journal Star delivery has been delayed due to the icy conditions.
My guess is that the snow plan was designed to handle snow, but not ice like we’ve had this year. Maybe the city should reevaluate the snow plan in light of these developments and establish an “ice plan” for the future.
Fire trucks became stuck also. Who knows about ambulances, Police cars,Ameren or what else.
You might want to do some more investigation next time before firing up the blog. There is no road salt available. That’s for Peoria, Peoria County, and a lot of other towns around here. The whole midwest, probably. What is available has to be used for the main roads only.
You can’t fight Mother Nature most of the time. Drivers are spoiled around here, and your type of blog entry doesn’t help matters.
Bentone says in one breath, “There is no road salt available,” and in the next breath, “What is available has to be used for the main roads only.” So, is salt available or not? Well, according to the Journal Star (10/30/08), who are apparently also guilty of doing no investigation:
As you can see (hopefully), the problem is not lack of supply, but a concern over cost. They are deliberately using less salt in order to save money.
And drivers are not “spoiled” around here. They pay high taxes and expect good service for that money.
Well, as my grandpappy used to say:
Expect into one hand and expectorate into the other, and see which one fills up first.
You’re using a newspaper article written BEFORE the past few weeks of snow, ice, and crap. Believe it or not, things do change from month to month. Why, you might find that McCain still had a chance at being president back on October 30. Are you going to blog about his possibility of being sworn in come next month, too, C.J.?
Do even MORE research, C.J. Find out how much is available. Find out how much is available to use. Then you might find out that what little, if any, that is available has to be used for the main roads. And, it’s all well and good for you to think that the city should pony up 2, 3, 4 times the cost of the salt, if it’s even available then. But, it’s not there, even at that price.
Does anything that the city or anyone in government does ever strike you as being positive? It must be really rough being the only right person in the world, or at least in the greater Peoria area.
bentone — I’m using the article to establish that Public Works decided to get by with less road salt *before* the bad weather started, not because they suddenly found themselves in short supply afterward. It was a calculated risk, and I’m not necessarily faulting them for trying. But clearly there are deficiencies, and it would behoove the city to reevaluate. Or do you think the city is perfect and can never be improved?
And yes, as a matter fact, it is tough being the only right person in the greater Peoria area.
Seriously, though, the problem here is ultimately a city planning issue. We have such low density and large land mass in the city now that we can no longer afford to keep all the streets cleared of snow and ice. The whole city has to accept a lower level of service in residential areas because of the kind of sprawl we have allowed and are still allowing. Few people in government look at the root causes of these things or propose any long-term solutions. They are dealing with the symptoms. It’s not really Public Works’ fault; they’re trying to accomplish an impossible task.
Bauble and trinket buying decreases monies for essentials. Name it and claim it. The museum is a trinket not an essential and so are the other projects we have wasted monies on. Root cause analysis is one of CJ’s many talents and I applaud CJ’s tenacity to keep writing (playing) the same unpopular and TRUE tune on the taxpayer piano.
I was just driving home tonight in the dense fog and light rain. When I turned onto a residential street it was an uneven mass of ice with recent precip making it absolutely treacherous. I crept through at about 5 mph, fearing that I was just going to slide into the many cars parked along the street. When this ice first hit, the salt, available or not, wouldn’t have done much good because of the frigid temps. Now the rain is melting it some but making it even more slippery. The sun will come out one of these days and make it all better. In the mean time, take it easy and take it slow. By the way, we haven’t had garbage pick up for over 10 days. At least it’s not 100 degrees. Just hope the rats don’t get any ideas!
Perfect example of “basic city services first” before any museum, hotel, ballpark….etc, etc, etc.
I live outside of Peoria but travel through several different communities to get to my office in Peoria. And regardless of how much bentone praises the job done, Peoria is ALWAYS the worst when it comes to response to winter weather. Regardless of whether its ice or snow there are a number of other communities throughout the area with much smaller budgets and lower taxes that seem to do better than Peoria in terms of snow plans.
11 Bravo: Is that because these other communities have smaller geographic areas, as in lower amounts of urban sprawl? I think there is a connection — less urban sprawl thus lower winter weather costs and a budget that prioritizes essential services — rather than say trinkets like the museum? What do you think?
Interesting points Karrie, I do think that the “trinklets” are probably less numerous in smaller communities. However I do not think, and I don’t believe you did either, that should serve as an excuse.
Regardless of the size of the community there should still be some sort of proportionality with regard to services. And I have not reviewed, nor do I have any intention to, the Peoria snow plan. So I don’t know whether or not it is an issue of lack of personnel or equipment, poor planning, incompetence on the part of the street department or some other reason.
All I know is that it seems no matter the conditions, the streets in the city of Peoria are always the worst.
11 Bravo: As a Peorian, I feel that the city has inverted priorities and there is not enough money allocated for basic services. Allocations for a wide variety of trinkets aka silver bullets are always available and then prove to be economic duds. Frankly, I would rather bond for streets and sidewalks and not civic centers especially after CJ’s post about civic center expansion. Citizens expressed their concerns at that time and their concerns went unheeded.