As a payloader finally freed his street from impassable snow, Gary Lloyd got the chance to ask the man in charge of the plows the question on every New Havener’s mind: What took you so long?
The encounter took place on Shelter Street Tuesday afternoon, as plows wrapped up a first pass of side streets after days of trying to free up New Haven’s more heavily traveled roads for emergency vehicles.
Lloyd, a social worker, lives on Shelter Street. He’s been stranded on Shelter Street since Winter Storm Nemo dumped an historic 34 inches of snow on New Haven.
New Haven public works chief Doug Arndt was there along with a posse of other city officials and politicians to greet the governor, who was whisking into New Haven’s Fair Haven neighborhood for a photo-op while touring the storm’s damage. The visit coincided with the last throes of one-block Shelter’s excavation.
Until that point, the city’s response to Shelter Street had been “non-existent,” Lloyd said, standing on the sidewalk alongside neighbor Cornelius Washington and Arndt. (Click on the play arrow above to watch part of the discussion.)
“All of a sudden the governor shows up, and everyone’s doing the job.”
Shelter ends at Grand Avenue, Fair Haven’s main commercial street.
“This front end right here [where Shelter meets Grand] wasn’t even plowed right here,” Lloyd complained. “The hard[-working] citizens of the neighborhood came and shoveled it out. …
“I understand that people need to be patient for the most part. But my gripe is Grand Avenue is getting plowed 101 times when it doesn’t even need to be plowed. … This street hasn’t been touched even one time.”
He sought an explanation from Arndt.
Arndt, who started his job last month, obliged matter-of-factly, with no hint of defensiveness.
“Grand Avenue was one of the main roads we kept open for fire response throughout the storm. A lot of vehicles that came here were traveling to the east end of the city … although its condition was still poor until yesterday when it softened up,” Arndt said.
Thrown by the ferocity of the once-in-a-century storm — in which 8 of the 34 inches fellow in just two and a half hours, buffeted by 55 mile-per-hour winds — the city did triage. It decided first to try to keep a single lane clear on the most heavily traveled arteries like Grand so ambulances and fire trucks and cops could get as close as possible to emergencies.
Only Monday afternoon did plows turn to the less traveled streets. Even then the idea has been to open a single lane for emergency vehicles. The city plans to return its platoon of pay loaders and plows to make the main drags wider Tuesday night in order to enable people to return to work downtown on Wednesday. Then the city plans to return to the neighborhoods Wednesday night to fully clear the Shelter Streets around town for car traffic on Thursday.
That’s the plan at least. Even with a forecast of a few more inches of snowfall overnight Wednesday.
When Arndt finished explaining, Lloyd was asked what he would have done in Arndt’s position. If he were in charge of plowing 225 miles of buried city streets, would he have hit Shelter sooner? Instead of Grand?
“I would have did Grand Avenue a few times instead of doing it 101 times … then come down and start focusing” on streets like Shelter, Lloyd responded. “People need to come out.”
Arndt listened quietly, and let him have the last word.
A half-block away at the Grand intersection, surrounded by reporters awaiting the governor’s arrival, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano pointed down Shelter to … make a point about the challenge of urban snow removal.
Streets like Shelter developed more than 100 years ago, he noted. “Automobiles were not ubiquitous. People would have walked to work. Or streetcars,” DeStefano said. The street wasn’t built with parked cars in mind. Now in 2013 it’s clogged with cars. And it’s hard to get plows through.
With that in mind, DeStefano announced that the city will aggressively tow cars parked on downtown streets Tuesday night, so the plows can get through. Then it will aggressively tow cars parked on the odd-numbered side of neighborhood streets like Shelter on Wednesday night, so the plows can get through.
And Gary Lloyd won’t have to worry about getting to work.
Unless, of course, a 10-foot mound of plowed snow lands on his car.
I imagine many of the plows on Grand were not even plowing it, but travelling to their destinations. Side streets and small streets were the last (as they should be).
All in all this looked like a good response by the city.
Communication was vastly improved from the past, and we truly had all hands on deck.
I was ECSTATIC to see that the City took care of many bus stops. Does anyone remember the last time? Bus riders were stranded without places to sit/wait for about 2 weeks. I am so happy that the Mayor learned his lesson (but, my one gentle criticism, is that this should be part of city policy, and not something he has to specifically request).
Good job to all!