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Last Friday, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer
declared the city to be battle ready for snow. The Metro Snow Team clears 2,724 lane miles
of road in Louisville (including 98 lane miles of road in District 8) along: main
thoroughfares, school bus and TARC routes, hospital and emergency routes, highly-traveled
secondary roads with hills or curves and connectors to major businesses and
factories. (The state clears interstates, expressways and highways.)
The city does not clear
neighborhood streets, however, because we can only do so much with the
resources we have. This raises the
question: what resources do we need to clear District 8 neighborhood streets,
and how important to you is snow removal?
Over the last several weeks, I have
been studying this question with the help of Metro Snow Team head Brian Funk,
the District 8 cities of Kingsley, Seneca Gardens, Strathmoor Manor and
Strathmoor Village and their private snow removal contractors. Here’s what I’ve learned:
The Metro Snow Team brines, salts and plows Louisville roads. Brining of main arterial roadways, major
through roads, bridges, overpasses and highly-traveled roads with trouble spots
begins if a storm is forecast. Plowing
and salting begins with an accumulation of two inches or more of snow and is
repeated if snow continues to accumulate.
The home rule cities’ services vary but all include brining or salting
(or both), in addition to plowing.
Simply put, District 8 does not have the discretionary funding to match these levels of service even for a mild winter. There are 99.75 lane miles of neighborhood
streets in the District 8 Urban Services District compared to 12.58 total
combined lane miles in the four cities. At
best, we have the budget to support plowing service for an average winter (13
inches), priced per push, beginning only after snow events of three or more inches
finally subside and the weather conditions are clear and safe. No brining, no salting.
I continue to work with Mr. Funk
and others in Metro Government to determine the benefits and value of this level
of service, obtain prices from qualified vendors and settle on program
administration best practices. I would
like to be able to offer “free” supplementary snow removal this winter but the
reality is we may still be a year away (next Dec. 2018 – Feb. 2019), assuming
the project conclusively makes sense.
In the meantime, here are the current District 8
Snow Routes and lane mileage by neighborhood, for your information:
Upper Highlands (20.04 mi.);
Belknap (14.95 mi.); Highlands-Douglass (12.88 mi.); Deer Park (10.44 mi.);
Hawthorne (9.02 mi.); Bonnycastle (8.72 mi.); Cherokee Triangle (6.88 mi.);
Tyler Park (4.84 mi.); Cherokee Seneca (3.19 mi.); Original Highlands (2.89
mi.); Seneca Vista (2.4 mi.); Cherokee Gardens (2.02 mi.); and Germantown (1.48
mi.).
Follow @LouPubWorks on Twitter for snow removal updates and visit the interactive Metro Snow Map to check the status of snow routes in your area.
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For breaking news and
information, please follow me on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram.
If you have a question or comment, please call me at: (502) 574-1108 or
email: brandon.coan@louisvilleky.gov (and
copy jasmine.masterson@louisvilleky.gov).
If you have a service request, please use MetroCall
311 online to submit or check on it, and get in touch with our office
if you experience any problems.
Thanks very much.
Councilman Brandon Coan
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