New City Manager implements changes to snow operations.
City Manager Brian Platt met with our snow operations team to evaluate our response to the New Year’s Day snowstorm and to create a more aggressive strategy to plow and salt during snowstorms.
"Through a smarter and more collaborative deployment of our already available resources, we will be able to deploy an additional 50 trucks and 100 drivers for all future snowstorms," said Platt, who spent New Year's Day observing and supporting the team plowing city streets. "We will create a larger, 24-hour plowing operation during storms."
To get there, we are making immediate changes that include:
increasing the amount of salting during storms
adding overnight shifts to residential routes
instituting a more aggressive approach to snow removal on residential streets
plowing multi-lane arterial streets with multiple trucks working in tandem to make sure the street is fully cleared on the first pass
assigning all available employees in solid waste and the water department to snow operations during every snow event
suspending trash and recycling during big storms to make those drivers available for snow plowing
deploying additional snow removal vehicles throughout snow removal operations
improving communication and coordination during snow operations
identifying additional municipal fleet vehicles that can be deployed for snow removal
“I thank our Public Works Department and city workforce for its dedicated efforts to treat our roads, bridges, and neighborhoods pre- and post-snowfall,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said. “Still, we have significant work to do to ensure the City more quickly provides the services we’ve promised to our residents, and today we are enacting significant reforms to improve the delivery of these services, including deploying more snow response teams to work round-the-clock to clear our roads and sidewalks, and improving the treatment of residential streets in all neighborhoods so our roads don’t turn into sheets of ice days after the storm is over.
As we head deeper into winter months, Kansas City government will continue working to ensure our roads are plowed and safe for you and your family as you travel throughout our community.”
Next steps include buying another mini-plow to clear protected bike lanes, as well as adjusting staffing and maintenance work to support these improvements in our snowplowing operations.
During snowstorms, updates are posted on our snow operations page and on Twitter@KCMO.