Sorry, I didn’t catch this guy’s last name, but during the city council meeting’s public testimony he raved about the snowgates being tested in his neighborhood. I suggest you watch the testimony, but one thing he said stood out, “They work.”
Sorry, I didn’t catch this guy’s last name, but during the city council meeting’s public testimony he raved about the snowgates being tested in his neighborhood. I suggest you watch the testimony, but one thing he said stood out, “They work.”
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He’s Andy Traub..and he reminds me a bit of James Woods after a long bout with Meth.
He’s also dead on correct about the Events Center.
[…] Ehrisman’s passionate advocacy of snowgates and our weekend winter wonderland got me wondering why Madison’s public […]
Let’s not forget that private citizen (Stehly) research introduced the idea of snow gates that but a few councilors fought for. Munson with cronies opposed. I’m waiting for Huether and/or Cooper to take full credit without proper acknowledgment. It’s typical form for dishonest and corrupt politicians.
the city guy was on the news last night whining about how they didn’t work and how it added 24 mins to every hour of snow clearing time. so regardless of what the actual voters think, the city will say this is a failed experiment.
Who was the city guy? And Sy, only you could turn a discussion about snowgates into another EC rant. 😉
I believe it was Gaylyn Huber.
From the kelo website. you can watch the video as well
“The blizzard provides an opportunity to test two new snow gates.
Early results show there was almost too much snow for them to work effectively because it had no where to go but up and over the gate, leaving half of the snow behind.
Huber said the process of raising and lowering the gates at driveways adds about 24 minutes to every hour of work.
But it’s less work in the long run for property owners.
“I think those people at the test sites were, they had to shovel less snow than what they normally would. I’m guessing they’re happy,” Huber said. “
No matter what the city decides to do, don’t think there won’t be a petition drive. I know the mayor likes the idea and I encourage his support.
We live up north where snow falls regularly during the winter which has to be plowed off streets and blocks your driveway. Been that way forever folks. I dont expect the city to take care of my every need and it surprises me that you complainers of everything about the city now want them to keep your driveway free of snow too. As a homeowner I want my street plowed asap. Use my tax dollars to keep the streets plowed in the winter and forget about trying to keep you lazy asses happy. I have a suggestion…move to Florida.
So you wrote to complain about “you complainer of everything”? lol
Pam,
It really doesn’t matter how quickly the streets are plowed if you can’t get out of your driveway until you spend and hour or so shoveling a rock hard mass of snow.
I expect very little from the city, but the services that they are responsible for need to be done correctly. Adding some time to clearing the streets is a small price to pay for the countless hours that it saves people from shoveling.
Sad…do you have any idea how many miles they plow and how many driveways there are in this city? Not very realistic to expect the city to keep every drive way clean. We should be responsible for ourselves and our property.
Well Pam if you don’t like it tell them not to use them by your place. Whatever happened to the blades that could be turned as they went past driveways and intersections? I used to see the type of blade that when the snowplows approached a driveway or intersection the blade was turned more into the street so that snow didn’t pile up at the ends of driveways and in intersections.
Pam, it’s not like ANYBODY is expecting perfect driveways. I see no problem with the city assisting us in making the chore of clearing our driveways just a little bit easier.
I always laugh at the people who complain about government giving too many services back to the citizenry. What do you think we pay taxes for? Do you think they are going to give us a tax cut for not supplying the service? Yeah right. We pay them to remove snow, they should do it properly.
Let me guess… Pam either works for the city or is married to a snow-plow operator and she is pissy because overtime hours will likely be cut as a result of the snow gates.
The fact is nobody expects the city to clear their driveways, but it would be nice if the city didn’t ADD snow to an already cleared driveway. That is sort of the point. Also Pam, I hate to break it to you, but operating a snow gate requires the operator to push all of one button to raise and/or lower it. If that is too much to ask of our city employees or contractors, than perhaps they should seek alternative employment opportunities.
How snow gates would actually add 24 minutes to every hour of plowing is beyond me. If used properly not only do the plows not need to slow down, but they won’t have to make second or third passes in intersections which reduces man hours, fuel, and equipment operating costs.
This is a no brainer – in numerous cities in our climate area, snow gates are used and proven to work time and time again. The real tragedy here is that we have a certain group of city employees who made up their minds about snow gates even before trying them, and since they now don’t wish to look like fools or be proven wrong they refuse to back down from their views.
Let’s not let some naysayers stall progress. It is time the city got back to basics and realized “city services” are just that… services to the citizens. If they were meant to be anything other than services, they would call them “city nuisances”. I don’t know about anyone else… but I’d like to think my tax dollars don’t go towards nuisances.
Obviously there is a learning curve, and I am sure the operators are still learning, once they get the hang of it, it will go faster.
Pam,
Why don’t we just have everyone be responsible for removing the snow in the street in from of their property? Then the city wouldn’t even need to have plows! We can just take care of it ourselves!
I don’t expect much from government. I’m as close to a minarchist as you’ll ever find. But when I pay taxes that go towards funding a service that the city is responsible for ( like plowing the streets that they make me pay for), I expect them to do a good job of it and not unnecessarily add to my workload.
I suspect you’d be mad if the city dug up the sewer line in the street in front of your home and left a pile of construction debris in your yard/driveway for you to clean up. Or would you just be content that they got the sewer line fixed and be happy to take care of the mess yourself because they have a lot of other work to do?
If the technology wasn’t there, I wouldn’t expect them to keep the snow from piling up in my driveway. The technology is there and it should be used.
#17 l3wis on 12.14.10 at 11:22 pm
Obviously there is a learning curve, and I am sure the operators are still learning, once they get the hang of it, it will go faster.
I don’t know, we are talking about city workers here. They might figure out the snowgates and start sandbagging just so they can continue to say they don’t work.
(that was a joke….I think)