GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Every year, the Van Buren County Road Commission sends out a press release explaining to the public its priorities in plowing the county’s roads. It’s just a way to remind everyone of the reasons some roads get plowed before others.
In checking with four snowplowing operations, we found that it’s common that those priorities are reviewed every year, but the criteria never changes: It all comes down to public safety, said Van Buren County Surface Maintenance Superintendent Bob Drake. “We go out there and we actually care … We want them to be safe.”
How that’s accomplished depends on numbers across the various snowplowing operations.
“The priorities are going to be based on traffic volumes and speed,” said Jerry Byrne, managing director of the Kent County Road Commission.
For Byrne, the freeways come first. "How can we service the most motorists in the quickest amount of time?”
Then state routes – Byrne calls them “M-roads. That would include high-traffic roads like 28th Street (M-11) and Alpine Avenue (M-37). And state routes that are just two lanes. Eventually, less-travelled streets and roads get attention. “We have the whole gamut of 100,000 plus cars a day to maybe something that has two trips a day.”
The City of Grand Rapids follows the same pattern of priorities, with some additional considerations, said Public Works Director John Gorney.
“When we talk about a first-attention road or a first priority road, it's going to be a road like Michigan Hill,” combining the vehicle volume, the importance of the hospitals, and the hazard of snow or ice on the hill, said Gorney. “That has to be a priority.”
The Kalamazoo County Road Commission also pays attention first to high-volume roads, labeled Level 1 and Level 2. “I would say Sprinkle Road is one,” said communications director Sarah Phillips. “While the snow is flying, we're going to keep those Level 1 and Level 2 roads clear.”
Bob Drake from Van Buren County points to how differing conditions across the county requires special efforts. “The three to four superintendents will get up and we drive the whole county starting around 2 in the morning to assess how bad the snow is. Because sometimes, some areas you'll have two inches and other places you could have up to a foot. So, that way we can put people out where they need to be.”
Kent County puts 100 trucks on the roads to clear the snow from what Byrne describes as 5,000 lane miles.
“It's even bigger, because that is just ‘center’ miles,” say Phillips in Kalamazoo County which has 1,200 miles to clear. “You’ve got to double that, because we’ve got to go one pass down one way and then one pass the other.”
The City of Grand Rapids has about 40 large trucks and 30 to 35 smaller trucks to handle about 500 miles of streets. Kalamazoo County has about 35 trucks on the roads at any given moment. Van Buren County has about 1,300 miles of roads to cover.
And yes, they hear from the public about how they’re doing. They all say the public appreciates their work.
But.
“We do often hear the question, ‘Where are the snowplows?’” says Phillips in Kalamazoo County. “You might not be seeing them as much, because they are on those Level 1, Level 2 roads (…) Especially in some weather the snow just keeps accumulating on those roads, we might have to go another pass on those before we can get down to the neighborhoods, but we will be getting to you.”
“There is some frustration on neighborhood streets,” says Byrne in Kent County. He notes there are many roads like West River Drive that take priority over subdivisions.
But the complaint they hear the most?
These officials all acknowledge a common issue: Heaps of snow at the end of driveways. And their responses have a commonality to them, too.
“We don't intentionally fill your driveway,” says Byrne. “I have to clean up my driveway just like you do and just like everybody else.”
“We have to get the snow off the street, and it's going somewhere,” says Gorney in Grand Rapids. “At the end of the day, everybody that's pushing snow off the street into your driveway, we all have to go home and clean our driveways too. So we get it.”
Drake in Van Buren County faces the same claims: “They just shoveled the end of their driveway, and then we filled it back in, and we did it on purpose. We never do that,” he says. “We have men and women that plow here that care about their job and love their jobs, and they don't do anything malicious on purpose.”
