Thomas MacMillan Photo
Plow driver Ray Rivas navigates narrow Chestnut Street during one of February’s storms.
Adam Marchand’s neighbors had nowhere to park their cars except the street. But snow plows couldn’t get through.
The situation was desperate; Marchand, a Westville alder, contacted city officials, who had the blacktop basketball courts cleared at Edgewood School. Some 15 of Marchand’s neighbors precipitously perched their vehicles there.
The lesson? The city needs to directly confront the excess cars on streets during storms, deploying unorthodox methods like people “hosting” the cars of neighbors who do not have driveways of their own or enlisting empty lots at churches or synagogues, Marchand said.
“You can’t tell people to move their cars if there’s nowhere for them to go,” he said.
David Blumenthal Photo
Marchand told that story, about the historic 2013 three-foot snowstorm, Tuesday night at a public “workshop” of the Board of Alders City Services & Environmental Policy Committee in City Hall. The workshop focused on how city departments can deal better with future snowstorms and super-storms.
Officials offering questions and fielding questions public works chief Doug Arndt, deputy emergency operations director Rick Fontana, traffic tsar Doug Hausladen, Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter and Fire Chief Allyn Wright.
Several superstorms left New Haven unable at times to clear streets in recent years; problems resurfaced during a series of significant snowfalls this past winter, when the Harp administration failed promptly to tow cars parked in defiance of street bans. Hausladen admitted Tuesday night that, because of “capacity issues,” he could not tow all of the cars he wanted for parking violations. That led to bigger problems the city never got fully on top of until the snow eventually melted.
Wright told the alders that his main concern during the storms was that city residents have access to fire hydrants.
“They come down, make one pass,” he said of snow plows. “I think what we need to do on a lot of the streets is widen the intersection as close as you can so when you approach Townsend Avenue. … You can pull over to let the car go by you.”
Arndt said his department was working on improving plowing, but still faces challenges due to narrow streets in many parts of the city.
“You can’t push the snow if there’s no place to push it,” he said.
Routes & Communications
Fair Haven Heights Alder Rosa Santana (pictured, second from right) began the questioning in earnest. She asked how the paucity of snow plows on her ward’s hilly streets during both Winter Storms Hercules and Janus could be remedied in the future.
Arndt responded that all of New Haven’s snow routes follow the paths of major streets with direct access to highways or hospitals.
“And Quinnipiac Avenue is not considered a main road?” Santana replied. “It’s to and from North Haven and East Haven.”
“I can’t recall,” said Hausladen. Arndt said that Quinnipiac would be marked with a sign saying, “Posted Snow Route” if it were one.
Arndt said he will try to expand the reach of city’s plow services. According to the City of New Haven website, a snow-plow driver generally takes three to six hours to complete each of New Haven’s 22 snow routes generally. Arndt said the city’s possession of only 28 vehicles hampers its ability to clear as much and as quickly as it would like.
“What it really comes down to is the resources that we have,” he said, estimating the cost of downtown snow removal at $30,000 a night.
The performance of the Emergency Operations Center’s staff during the storm also drew Santana’s attention. Santana said that many of her constituents had received five to ten information robocalls throughout the day during major storms from the city’s notification service. Many of them, especially the elderly, felt harassed.
Fontana expressed doubt that either Santana or her constituents had received so many calls. The EOC does not send notifications more than twice a day, he said, and does so neither before 10 a.m. nor after 9 p.m.
“Unless it was a targeted area, the city has not put out more than two calls in one day,” he said.
Who Plows?
West River Alder Tyisha Walker (pictured) said that during one storm she noticed the driver of a plow truck — not a public works truck, but presumably a contractor — neglecting his work. She recalled seeing a work truck “just chilling” for approximately four hours.
“They didn’t even put the thing down,” she said. “They just rolled on to the end of the street.”
Arndt said his department will consider using some sort of tracking devices via GPS to ensure that the contractors work efficiently. If not, he said, he will “get somebody out there to give them some assistance.”
This led to questions about the city’s reliance on outside contractors. East Rock Alder Anna Festa asked Arndt about the “cost variation” between using contractors or hiring more city employees for the jobs.
Arndt called hiring in-house a better option “in terms of the big picture.”“After five to ten years, our costs are dramatically lowered,” he said. “It’s dramatically less expensive for us to do it in house.”
Downtown Alder Abby Roth (pictured, second from right) suggested that the city considering hiring local youths in need of work to shovel sidewalks. She maintained regardless that she found the proliferation of unshoveled sidewalks in the recent storm “treacherous.”
Hausladen responded that he has the code enforcement officers necessary to keep the sidewalks clear, and that he doesn’t want to distract kids from academic pursuits.
“I hope our snow efforts are so great that they never miss a day of school,” Hausladen responded.
“Or they could do it in the afternoon,” Roth suggested.
“Engage Our Citizenry”
Morris Cove Alder and committee chair Sal DeCola (pictured) took the floor to emphasize the importance that the city “educate” New Haveners about snow regulations. “Someone from each ward when we have a problem, we should have a direct call” from the city to spread information, he said.
DeCola added that he would like to see the city hold a public meeting in late September for such an education. Carter replied that the meeting is a good idea, but he prefers it be held in October.
Marchand proposed a tour of all the city’s community management teams. “We need to engage our citizenry and our society in a way that goes beyond messaging,” he said. “We need to be able to deliver X action in Y area at Z time.”
"Hausladen responded that he has the code enforcement officers necessary to keep the sidewalks clear."
I somehow doubt this statement, considering that the sidewalks outside of areas such as Yale, City Hall, East Rock, and Westville are NEVER clear - this holds true especially in the areas that are walked every day by elderly residents, bus riders, and children.
Roth's suggestion is a good one to explore. But instead of hiring school children, how about hiring some of New Haven's 15,000 unemployed and underemployed adults.