The sidewalks are much cleaner in Syracuse after Monday’s aggressive storm, but residents can thank the sun for that, rather than the new sidewalk plows that are provided by the city. When the plows went through, they removed the snow from the sidewalks, but the layer of ice underneath was much more difficult to counteract. The plows do not have the capability to salt the sidewalks, which could speed up the melting process.
On February 13th and 14th, JSK Snow Services began their endeavor to clean over forty blocks of city sidewalk. Previously, business owners were responsible for cleaning and maintaining the sidewalks outside of their location and even after the plows supposedly drove through town, owners and employees were still taking on the burden.
“Yea, I mean I had to head into work one to two hours early to clear the snow,” Jeremiah Clifford, owner of Working Class Tattoo Shop in the Eastwood neighborhood of East Syracuse said.
Common Council approved the plan for the City of Syracuse to remove the snow from the city sidewalks earlier this year and began the initiative on Wednesday and continued into Thursday. The plan is put into action whenever there is a minimum of three inches of snow. Syracuse is testing this initiative for the rest of this winter.
Despite the cost of the service that will come from homeowner’s taxes, the snow removal plan did not work as well as expected, especially with the large amount of freezing rain that the city experienced in the last storm.
When the plows went through, they removed the snow from the sidewalks, but the layer of ice underneath was much more difficult to counteract. The plows do not have the capability to salt the sidewalks, which could speed up the melting process.
For the residents and business owners of Syracuse, the sun was on their side yesterday, aiding the melting process and creating less hysteria over the subsequent failure of the snow plows to truly clear the sidewalks after the storm
