The Journal Star reports that city crews are ready for the 4-8 inches of snow we’re supposed to get starting tonight.

After the December 1 snow storm, Public Works Director Steve Van Winkle told the council he wouldn’t change a thing. During last week’s snowfall, Van Winkle told WCBU’s Jonathan Ahl that his department is “capable of fighting snow,” but the “big ones” are “not as doable from the standpoint of achieving satisfaction on the part of all the citizens.”

Taken together, it sure sounds to me like Van Winkle is saying that, if we were to have another snowfall like December 1, there would be no difference in the outcome. We still would have had immobility problems because the city is prepared to adequately handle snowplowing for weather events like last week’s snow, but not “big ones” like the one December 1.

And that raises questions about the snow that is supposed to hit us tonight. This will be more like December 1 than last week, so it will be a truer test of any changes the city has made to improve their performance. And there have been some changes — they’ve been using more calcium chloride on the streets and have a fancy new AVL (automated vehicle locater) system so they can track the snowplows. Will it be enough? Time will tell.

David Haste tells the Journal Star he and his crews are ready. I would assume he has a case of Red Bull handy just in case he has to pull three or four consecutive all-nighters again. Since they know the snow is coming, I wonder if his superior suggested he flex his time — say, by coming in late today — so as to mitigate overtime pay. Nah, I’ll bet that’s one thing that didn’t change.

Here’s a little compilation of what people are saying about the streets of Peoria and the city’s efforts to remove snow:

Peoria Journal Star:

The main reason [District 150 will be closed for the third day in a row] is that sidewalks are still buried in snow, district spokeswoman Stephanie Tate said Monday. Nobody wants kids walking on the street to get to school or the nearest bus stop.

“We don’t want them walking on icy streets while cars are driving on them,” Tate said.

Peoria Illinoisan:

It took me a over friggin’ HOUR to drive the length of University from Pioneer Parkway to Main Street. An HOUR! […] Why does Peoria always seem to screw things up? Can we stop being so progressive and actually spend some cash on things like PLOWS, SIDEWALKS, FIRESTATIONS, and POLICE?

WEEK.com:

City Street and Sewer Manager David Haste says the city was prepared for the snow, but not the ice.

“If we didn’t have any traffic, we wouldn’t have the snow pack and we wouldn’t have the conditions that we have,” says Peoria City & Sewer Manager David Haste. “It was just the amount of traffic that came out right away.”

Peo Proud on Peoria Pundit:

Like others, I’m always amazed that smaller “less professionally” run towns are able to provide better basic services with less resources than we have.

I wonder how well the new GPS systems that were to be installed on each of the plow units helped/would have helped the Department in fighting the snow/ice event.

WHOI News:

The city street manager said the city was at the mercy of the storm.

“This was just a really tough snow. If it was a dry snow, the same amount we would have it cleared by now,” Haste said. “Everything cleared right down to the pavement, but it just wasn’t.”

Haste said they are going to look at how they can improve for future snow storms.

“justanobserver” on Peoria Chronicle:

Just heard an interview on WYZZ 9 p.m. news with a former city employee who said that salt was left in trucks on Friday, got wet, froze, and couldn’t be spread.

Peoria Journal Star (the whole article is good, so go read it, but here are just a couple quotes):

“The city manager sent out an e-mail saying, ‘Job well done.’ I admit I’m usually the first to agree, but not this time. I completely disagree that this was a job well done. I think it’s unacceptable,” said [Councilman John] Morris, who needed 45 minutes to get Downtown to work Monday from his home in Knollcrest. He also fielded 50 calls from upset constituents. […] And several [council members] said the issue will no doubt be discussed at today’s regular council meeting. […] As of Monday morning, [Councilman Gary] Sandberg said he had received 137 phone calls, only two of them with positive comments.

Emtronics:

Every intersection at the traffic light is an ice rink. There are no lanes to speak of and people are just driving wherever they can fit. Where are the plows and salt crews? […] Either these guys don’t know how to operate a blade and understand the physics of salting after you blade or there simply isn’t enough staff to do our streets.

Eyebrows McGee:

We’re still basically stuck in the house. I ventured out this morning for a doctor’s appointment, well over an hour before I had to be there. In 20 minutes I made it six blocks (the doctor is about six MILES away), got stuck three times (once leaving my own driveway), and lost traction completely twice.

Knight in Dragonland on Peoria Chronicle:

Court Street, the main drag through Pekin, is Illinois Route 9. It’s been nice and clear for two days now.

Conclusion: There are a lot of unhappy Peorians who think the city did a poor job of clearing the streets. Expect a protracted discussion on this at Tuesday’s council meeting. And don’t think Sandberg will miss his opportunity to ask why snow removal wasn’t done more efficiently in light of the new GPS tracking devices Public Works recently bought. He might even ask for a printed report on where all the plows have been the last three days.

Ironically, as I’m typing this, a city plow just went down my street. Hey, are they spying on me? Not that I’m paranoid, but seriously, who’s tapping my phone? 😉

Here’s an interesting little tidbit from the Fall 2005 issue of River City Review, the City’s newsletter:

The City of Peoria has 355 cul-de-sacs and 238 dead-end streets which are the most time-consuming to plow. It takes an average of 35 minutes to clear a cul-de-sac of snow. This is eight times longer than it takes to plow a through street of the same size. Cul-de-sacs are more difficult because of the limited space to dump snow without burying driveways, mailboxes, streetlights, and fire hydrants. The ever-increasing number of cul-de-sacs in newer subdivisions multiplies the amount of time to clear non-routed streets in Peoria.

There are other downfalls to cul-de-sacs. They’re not well-regarded in New Urbanist literature. For instance, here’s part of a critique from Heart-of-Peoria-Plan-author Andres Duany’s book “Suburban Nation,” p. 116:

CUL-DE-SAC KIDS

Perhaps the most worrisome [lifestyle imposed by contemporary suburban development] is the situation facing the children of suburbia. In one of the great ironies of our era, the cul-de-sac suburbs, originally conceived as youth’s great playground, are proving to be less than ideal for America’s young.

That suburban life may be bad for children comes as a surprise. After all, most families move to the suburbs precisely because they think it will be “good for the children.” What do they mean by that? Better suburban schools — a phenomenon peculiar to the United States — are good for children. Big, safe, grassy fields to play on are also good for them. What is not so good for children, however, is the complete loss of autonomy they suffer in suburbia. In this environment where all activities are segregated and distances are measured on the odometer, a child’s personal mobility extends no farther than the edge of the subdivision. Even the local softball field often exists beyond the child’s independent reach.

The result is a new phenomenon: the “cul-de-sac kid,” the child who lives as a prisoner of a thoroughly safe and unchallenging environment. While this state of affairs may be acceptable, even desirable, through about age five, what of the next ten or twelve years? Dependent always on some adult to drive them around, children and adolescents are unable to practice at becoming adults. They cannot run so simple a household errand as picking up a carton of milk. They cannot bicycle to the toy store and spend their money on their own. They cannot drop in on their mother at work. Most cannot walk to school. Even pickup baseball games are a thing of the past, with parents now required to arrange car-pooling with near-military precision, to transport the children at the appointed times.

The problem with cul-de-sacs is that they all exit onto collector roads which in turn exit onto arterial streets. Think of the neighborhood off of War Memorial at Montello. It’s a beautiful neighborhood of residential houses on dead-end streets, but if you want to go shopping or see a movie, there’s no way for children to get there safely by walking or bicycling because the only access is Route 150. Any children or adolescents living there must rely on their parents to drive them everywhere.

And, now we learn that cul-de-sacs are a huge drain on city resources in the winter because of the time it takes to clear them of snow. Older parts of the city that are on a grid pattern of through-streets take only an eighth of the time to clear. Just one more example of the efficiency of urban living.

Immediately after the storm, I was pretty impressed with the city’s response. In fact, I’ve been kind of defending them to some people who have been more critical. I mentioned the fact that snowstorms this big are uncommon (the last one was in 1999), so it’s unrealistic to expect the city to maintain the manpower and equipment for a storm of this size when it happens so infrequently and the budget is so tight. Also, my alley was plowed (a single pass) within 24 hours of the storm, which made me happy and allowed me to get into work Saturday.

But now it’s Monday — day three following the storm — and there hasn’t been any precipitation or even much wind the last few days. I was out last night and the roads, while plowed and passable, were still horrendous. You couldn’t travel along University much over 15 mph (although there were plenty of idiots who tried and were fishtailing all over the place), and most of the roads were packed down snow and ice with lots of pits and ruts. Road conditions were so bad that District 150 canceled school again today.

Yet, conversely, I’ve heard a lot of anecdotal reports that streets in East Peoria and Pekin are clear and easily driveable, and I believe school is in session in those communities today. So, if that’s true, why is Peoria still such a mess? The excuse I’m hearing more than anything is that public works crews were slowed by a number of stuck and abandoned cars on the roads. For instance, here’s what Mayor Ardis said in today’s “Word on the Street” column:

“I’d say the biggest part of the problem – they told people not to go out Friday unless absolutely necessary and some people still went out and got stuck. Then the plows can’t get around them.”

So, does that mean no one went out and got stuck in East Peoria or Pekin this past weekend? Here’s another excuse:

Also, Ardis said he was getting some complaints about Knoxville Avenue not being clear.

“People scream about Knoxville, but they should know it’s a state road. That’s not part of our thing,” said Ardis, adding he’s sure the state was doing the best it could given the circumstances.

But Route 24 is also maintained by the state, and I’ve heard that that route specifically is clearer across the river than it is in Peoria. So, the state did a better job of clearing their routes across the river than they did here?

In fairness, I haven’t been across the river to see these roads for myself, so I could be the victim of “bad intelligence,” as they say in the military. However, if the information I’ve been hearing is true, I have a feeling the City of Peoria is going to catch a lot of flack in the coming days — maybe even at tomorrow’s council meeting.