Snow job

Remember slogging through the worst winter in 20 years a few months back?

Remember the excellent condition the town roads were in?

I had the opportunity to talk to Highway Superintendent Mike Nielson today about the season.  For a guy who people feared wouldn't be able to do the job because he's a firefighter in Kingston, the results are pretty damned impressive.

Mike set himself the goal of keeping our roads clear while saving money.  Then, he got hit with the nastiest, harshest winter we've seen in a generation - I've confirmed how bad a season it was by checking with Wayne Kelder, who oversees the highways in the Town of Rochester on the other side of the ridge.

This winter was the one where every single highway department in Ulster County - including the county's - was over budget.  It's just one of those things that happens when you're dealing with the mysteries of weather, and towns have budget mechanisms to move money around when that much snow hits the plow.

New Paltz, however, spent 60% of its snow removal budget, and did it without those nasty sand buildups which are pretty much expected during the long, dark days of winter.

How 'bout that?

Here's a few more interesting details about the highway department:

• Past practice has dumped 1,800 pounds of sand and salt on the roads.  This season it was cut back to 700 - and Nielson feels that it can be done with even less material.
• To put it another way, Ulster County spent $35 per lane mile on snow removal.  New Paltz did the same job for $13 per lane mile, and Nielson has set a target of $7.
• This represents a savings to the New Paltz taxpayers of $84,000 for the season. The superintendent's salary is approximately $43,000, so Nielson has effectively worked for free.

Anyone who doesn't think we got our money's worth voting for Nielson should be prepared to demonstrate why.

Living on a glacier

I feel like I can't say enough about this ice storm, and how much it makes me think that snow and ice removal should be a function of village government.  In fact, they already do it for the absentee landlords; I had a conversation with building inspector Kathy Moniz a few minutes ago as the DPW crew plowed and shoveled the icy mess across the road from me.

The village charges a dollar a linear foot plus a $50 administrative fee if they need to remove the snow and ice from your sidewalk.  As my own glacial horror is too frozen for a snow shovel and chipping away with a garden shovel is reminding me of my age, that price seems almost worth it.  The fifty dollars is for Kathy's time, as she has to stand by filming the crew, both to prove the bill is appropriate and for liability reasons.  Of course, if the village just did it as a matter of course, Kathy wouldn't need to do a survey after every snow fall and watch the crew as they did their jobs; she could focus on many of the other tasks her understaffed department is responsible for.

When I shared my interest in municipal snow removal with Kathy, she said to me, "You'll never get them to do it."  I don't know if she meant the board or the DPW.  

If she meant the board, I'm not so sure.  There are only a few readers here, but they're quick to pipe up if they don't like what the poster has to say on an issue, so I'm assuming that the small sample represented by the readership of the Gadfly would like clearer sidewalks.  I'm reasonably sure I could get the board to consider this in their next budget cycle.  Kathy is probably just a bit jaded by working in government.

If Kathy was referring to the DPW . . . well I really hope she wasn't.  I take a very dim view of any government employee who doesn't do their job, and I have no problem with naming names in all sorts of public places if that sort of shenanigans were to occur.  But I'm sure that if the DPW is directed to remove snow from sidewalks, that they will do so quickly and efficiently.

For the moment, I await a ride from a friend to go buy more salt.  My car is completely frozen under, and even my garage is frozen shut.  Ah, the joys of living on a sloped lot!

Clearing sidewalks is snow joke

We get more snow in the Hudson Valley than I experienced growing up to the south of here, and far less than the many feet I saw when I was a college student to the north. Snow removal, particularly from sidewalks, was a topic of concern at this week's Town Planning Board meeting, held jointly with the Town Council. It's also the topic of a letter that Bill Weinstein wrote to the New Paltz Times. The picture at left, taken this morning, is of my own buried sidewalk, and reminds me that some shoveling is definitely in order out there.

Paul Brown, chair of the Planning Board, seems to feel that we're better off minimizing how many sidewalks we require be built because those sidewalks need to be maintained and cleared. Better to make people walk in the streets, which are plowed, than force homeowners to shovel would could amount to hundreds of feet of sidewalk in some areas of the Town.

Bill Weinstein recently took over the chair of the Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee, and he's not impressed by how poorly the sidewalks in the Village proper are cleared. This is what he has to say:

To the Editor:

The heavily used crosswalk across Main Street from the Chase Bank to Elting Library was blocked by snow on the bank side for at least six days from Thursday, January 15th. The shoulder of snow that straddled the street and sidewalk by the bank was thrown up by a snowplow doing its job clearing the street. Nevertheless, no one took the time to cut through this snow and make it possible for pedestrians, particularly people in wheelchairs or children in strollers, to use this wheelchair-accessible curbcut.

Pedestrians eventually made their own passageway through the snow, a mini-Khyber Pass of about a footprint's width. (Please see the attached photo.) This was what I had to help my three-year-old navigate twoThursdays ago, with only one eye out for the traffic – a dangerous situation with a high risk of slipping or tripping into the traffic lane.

By Friday, the passage was no clearer, and colder weather and more snow was setting in. By the end of the Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, the now greater accumulation of snow and ice still had not been cleared, as was the case on Monday and Tuesday.

On Wednesday afternoon volunteers from the New Paltz Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee cut a clean, wide path through the snow and ice. Pedestrians could now cross Main Street from the bank to the library without fear of slipping.

But whose responsibility is it to make sure that New Paltz crosswalks are kept clear for walking? Village Code §175-11.E requires that the owner of property at an intersection must clear a path 30" wide to enable pedestrian access from the sidewalk to the street. Safe pedestrian access to our crosswalks and sidewalks is an important part of making New Paltz the vibrant, liveable community we love. Let's make sure we all hold up our end of the shovel when the snowflakes fly.

Yours sincerely,

William Weinstein
For the New Paltz Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee

I find that New Paltz is really the worst of all worlds when it comes to removing snow. As a homeowner, I do not have the village clearing the sidewalks as happened in Potsdam, where I went to college. I also do not have a parkway strip, as my parents did on Long Island. That two feet of grass between road and sidewalk is very useful right now, because with my sidewalk adjacent to the street, it becomes the depository of the plowed snow.

I like to think of myself as a young man, and I have no problem either shoveling a couple feet of fluffy snow from my walk, or hiring some local kids to do it. But moving the plow's share is a lot tougher. Last time we had snow, we got it shoveled only to have it buried again, and then it froze solid. I've been trying to get rid of it ever since. It can take more than good intentions to shovel even a short walk, and I can't imagine how people older than I do it.

In the village, at least, I am thinking it may be time to consider having the DPW clear the sidewalks, like the college does. Either I'm paying someone to do it or I'm losing money (and possibly my health) by doing it myself, so I don't think it would actually cost more. It would also ensure that pedestrians get safe passage, whether or not Chase Bank gets the walk shoveled or my snow freezes under the plow's blade. Some people can't be bothered to clear the snow, and others try and fail. If the goal is snow removal, we should seriously consider why we don't consider sidewalks to be as important as roads.

Comments and contradictions welcome. Libertarian comments about the dangers of expanding government are particularly invited, but I invite one and all to poke holes in this idea.