Madison Roads Update Following Historic Storm

21 inches of snowfall reportedly covered the city.  

Snow Removal Updates

FROM DISTRICT 20 RESIDENT:

Dear Alder Harrington-McKinney:

"I am quite sure that I am not the only person complaining about the terrible condition of the streets on Madison's West Side following the snowfall of January ninth through twelfth. Watts Road had several inches of packed snow, which turned into lumpy ice, and fifteen mph was the maximum anyone was driving on it. Reports from friends and family tell the same story for the entirety of the West Side..... I know that we have 165 property tax paying residences just in our few blocks, and between us we pay around a million dollars in property taxes each year for City and County services and all the other homeowners in the area hand over similar amounts. When I look at the basic services which are these government's primary reason for existence; passable streets, controlling crime, fighting fires and providing quality education for our children, only the fire department seems to offer a good return on our investment. The City of Madison has to start doing a better job on the important things, the things that affect our daily lives, the things that should be their first priorities.

Resident Name Withheld, Madison, WI 53719-2353

FROM Charlie Romines, City of Madison, Superintendent, Streets & Urban Forestry 

There have been many comments about the 20 inches of snow that covered Madison the past few days. The following update provided was provided by 

I understand the last several days have been challenging for many of you as upset constituents reach out with concerns about road conditions, I suspect we have heard from many of the same people. Although I don’t track social media it has also come to my attention there is a fair amount of information being shared around, much of what I have been told mostly falls somewhere between completely false and grossly misinformed. I’ve cobbled together the below to hopefully provide some information you will find helpful.

"I heard from several people that their street wasn’t plowed until too late after the storm." - We performed a Citywide General plow twice last week, meaning every street and alleyway in the City was in fact plowed twice, once on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, and again on Saturday between midnight and 4pm. We did not perform a City wide\ General plow on Thursday morning as the almost 2" we got Wednesday night did not meet the threshold. Beyond the typical General Plow on Saturday morning we took the additional step of keeping crews on the salt routes, plowing them back as the snow did not end until late Saturday morning. We could not have started the plow any earlier nor been more attentive to the salt route network.

"Could you help me better understand our streets maintenance schedule" - We've had staff on around the clock from 9pm Monday January 8th thru this writing and will continue to have for the foreseeable future as we sand hills, curves, intersections and other slick spots, plow back parking move outs and tend to the CSCL's and the like.

"I am particularly interested in how we carried out our snow maintenance plan this last storm?"- After salting at the storms onset we had to make a decision on whether to put down a second round of salt immediately following the first. The decision came down to realizing at best a nominal gain in road conditions by putting down a quick second round versus at least a 50\50 risk of creating icy conditions given the specifics of the event. There is an incredible amount people don’t understand about snow and ice and the variables are numerous. This wasn't a matter of putting down salt a time or two more than we did and you've got bare pavement, certainly not in conditions we were facing during the storm and considering what was coming post storm. Your options in a storm like the one late last week are to salt and keep salting and do it fast enough, at a rate high enough, repeatedly and in quick succession enough, to hold off ice formation (Dane County Highways - DOT) or to shut it down before ice starts forming (City of Madison). We are not set up to chase the plunging temps down the rabbit hole with salt, even if we set environmental values aside. We do not have the capabilities to do what Dane County Highways did to keep the beltline, interstate and surface highway roads they maintain to bare pavement in an event like this. To be clear, a couple more employees, a little bigger OT budget, a hundred grand more for salt, a few more plow trucks etc. would not have changed the outcome for this event. Instead we focused on what we could and did accomplish, keeping the roads plowed wide and safe, putting extra staff on to keep up with the snow and blowing snow.

"Was there anything that went really well or we could have done better?"-  As hard as it is for some to accept, the results we achieved were actually our best possible outcome. Roads were maintained wide and snow covered, and we did not and do not have icy conditions. As much as the snow pack can and has gotten slippery, its not as bad as actual ice and we knew we could keep sanding into it and achieve relatively safe (not optimal) winter driving conditions for the week ahead. If ice had formed (from chasing w salt and not being able to keep up) then sand would not help much and salt would still not be effective at these temps leaving us no real options to maintain the roads for the week ahead, now the week we are in. I am very pleased with the work our staff did and how well we executed our plan given our realities of storm conditions, road types, policies and long held service standards. I should point out this event has some similarities with an event we had in the winter of 2018-2019, less snow in that event but similarly quickly plunging artic temps immediately following the storm. The road conditions we achieved on both salt routes and residentials then and now are identical. The key difference is that arctic plunge only lasted 3-4 days and we were able to start salting and plowing off where as this one looks to last 8 days which keeps these conditions, which while the best we could achieve are certainly not optimal for driving, around a lot longer to wear on peoples nerves and create opportunities for accidents.

"Is there anyway that we can support streets staff with plowing?" - Remind people this is Wisconsin, for our long term staff they say the last week plus has been the hardest of their careers (20" in 4 days with two City wide General Plows, blowing snow, long term arctic air) with the Friday\Sat snow event a top 3 or 4 most difficult on its own. Realize we are not a DOT (bare pavement at any cost, no trash collections, no sidewalks, bike lanes and bus stops etc. to concern themselves with) and we don't have a bare pavement at any cost policy or service standard and as such we are not resourced or structured organizationally to achieve it in a once in every 5-15 year event like we are experiencing.

I appreciate and completely understand the concerns some of you and your constituents may have. In my 6 years managing Streets I've had a few Alders reach out about snow and ice practices and policies. I will tell you all the same thing I have shared with them, if we want significantly different outcomes for these types of events we have to have those conversations in the spring and early summer to make significant changes in how Streets\Public Works is resourced and structured along with reconsidering long held policies and values and make very hard decisions in the budget to be able to achieve higher levels of service. I am willing to have those discussions however on the whole I do believe our current policies and service levels strike a reasonable balance of providing safe winter driving conditions as well as environmental and fiscal responsibility.

I am researching a couple of thoughts we might be able to implement in “break glass in case of emergency” scenarios in the future that perhaps can prevent the long duration snow pack on the salt routes and not be a complete budget buster to implement. Once I have something for consideration I will share that out as appropriate.

As far as a heads up for what’s coming. If the current forecast holds we will be able to salt the salt routes either Sunday afternoon or Monday morning and start getting those back to pavement. The residential streets by Monday into Tuesday will start to puff up. As they do deep ruts and jagged edges will start to form if we don't plow them off to or near the curb. Given the amount of snow on them many will probably need to be plowed back twice. Many people will be angry about this as the plowing back will impact their driveways which is unavoidable. We are not excited about the possibility of rain on the hard packed side streets so we are hoping it holds off for warmer air to make plowing off possible before the rain comes. Bryan and I will keep you all updated.

I hoped I've answered your questions and concerns, you are certainly welcome to reach back out with further questions or discussion.

From the Mayor's Office

"The impact on our roads, now covered in icy, compacted snow, has undoubtedly been a source of concern and inconvenience for everyone. In response to the numerous inquiries into our ongoing efforts to address these challenging conditions and assure you that our dedicated crews are working tirelessly, around the clock, to improve conditions of our roads. Tis storm presented unprecedented challenges. Temperature below the threshold for effective salt application, subsequent snowfall, and frigid conditions have made out response particularly challenging. We received nearly 20 inches of snow in four days, followed by nearly 20 inches of snow in four days, followed by a week of frigid temperatures ranking among the top 5 worst storms Madison's faced".