Complaints during last month’s snowstorms have led city officials to create a new residential snow-clearing cavalry: “the light-plow brigade.”
Manager of Public Works Bill Vidal – taking a cue from Mayor John Hickenlooper – told City Council members Wednesday that future snowstorms of 6 inches or more will activate as many as 120 smaller plows designated for neighborhood streets.
About 30 inches of snow inundated the city over the course of three storms, and packed ice still lingers on neighborhood streets.
Vidal said Denver had never made neighborhood streets a priority. The difference, he said, is that these storms hit in the coldest stretch of winter, when warm temperatures and sun can’t melt the snow.
“We are being graded to a standard that was never set before,” he said, noting that “citizens were not satisfied.”
So, in addition to the nearly 70 dump-truck-size plows the city uses to clear arterials, major storms will trigger a convoy of city pickup trucks with plow attachments.
Vidal told council members a fleet of 120 would double the current snow budget from $4 million to $8 million.
But he said that has to be weighed against the cost of not getting it done.
Hickenlooper told council members Tuesday that Denver businesses likely lost between $75 million and $80 million because of the storms.
And Vidal said immediately plowing neighborhoods will not translate to clear streets the day after a storm with 2 feet of snow.
“There is not enough money in the world to do that,” he said.
Councilwoman Marcia John son cautioned that there are many needs in the city despite the fact that “this has become in most of our minds in this city the only thing.”
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-954-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
