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Does the City of Chicago have a new approach to snow removal?

Has there been some sort of decision that secondary and residential streets will no longer be cleared of snow?

This winter is off to a very bad start for Chicago cyclists.

Would be interested to hear what you're seeing in your part of town.

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You must be living in a different Edgewater than I do.

In my Edgewater, street plowing is on par with previous years: Streets are generally rideable with a few areas with some slush.

Eli said:

It definitely seems worse this year in Edgewater. There are big ridges of snow in between the lanes on side streets, and even the main streets, while they have been nominally plowed and salted, are not great either. In contrast to earlier years I have seen zero proactive salting anywhere before storms, even though every snowfall this year has been well-predicted.

They're plenty rideable now after days of car traffic. Last Sunday night after a full day's snowfall with no salting or plowing, and into last Monday, they were covered with several inches of irregularly-compacted snow and were not rideable.


The CPD is going back.  I've seen spots where the snow has drifted onto the path and then 8 hours later the path has been mostly clear.  It could have been the wind but I doubt that so I suspect the Park District has touched up spots.  That being said, I think it's unreasonable to expect the park district to clear things every few hours, it seems like they go out once a day or so which seems reasonable.


kiltedcelt said:

See the problem is not that there is drifting snow, but that NO ONE is going back out with a plow to do anything about it. The best I can is that plows run through on the path only starting around 7:00 AM or so and once they've gone over it once that's it until it actually snows again. Also, why the hell isn't anyone clearing that damn path from the bridge over the Chicago River all the way down to Illinois?

Has there been clearing of the protected lanes in general? I have not happened upon any besides Marshall since the snow started accumulating.


 
Adam Herstein (5.5 mi) said:

Side streets in Lake View have been pretty abysmal. It's frustrating because the side streets are generally better for biking, and the city is taking that convenience away. Another relic of auto-centric culture. That, coupled with the shoddy plowing of the protected and painted bike lanes is making this winter more difficult than last year. The Lake Front Trail has been well-plowed and salted, though. So there's that.

Today I rode Milwaukee, Kinzie, Dearborn.  Generally, it appears the city cleared the lanes pretty well.  Snow is tracked into them at intersections by turning cars and some building managers/owners clearly pushed snow back into them and that snow was not cleared.
 
h' 1.0 said:

Has there been clearing of the protected lanes in general? I have not happened upon any besides Marshall since the snow started accumulating.


 
Adam Herstein (5.5 mi) said:

Side streets in Lake View have been pretty abysmal. It's frustrating because the side streets are generally better for biking, and the city is taking that convenience away. Another relic of auto-centric culture. That, coupled with the shoddy plowing of the protected and painted bike lanes is making this winter more difficult than last year. The Lake Front Trail has been well-plowed and salted, though. So there's that.

There has, but it's been messy. There are piles of snow at intersections, and a gutter of snow next to the curb where it has clearly been shoveled from the sidewalk.

h' 1.0 said:

Has there been clearing of the protected lanes in general? I have not happened upon any besides Marshall since the snow started accumulating.


 
Adam Herstein (5.5 mi) said:

Side streets in Lake View have been pretty abysmal. It's frustrating because the side streets are generally better for biking, and the city is taking that convenience away. Another relic of auto-centric culture. That, coupled with the shoddy plowing of the protected and painted bike lanes is making this winter more difficult than last year. The Lake Front Trail has been well-plowed and salted, though. So there's that.

Vincennes near 87th St. is clean.  18th near Wentworth is anything but.

h' 1.0 said:

Has there been clearing of the protected lanes in general? I have not happened upon any besides Marshall since the snow started accumulating.

It's not been good by me and I've been relying on a fat bike to handle this crap.

The buffered lane on Clybourn has been a mess. To get to work I usually take that to Damen, which in the past has never been cleared of snow so I haven't bothered. CTA this week it is!

Kind of an obvious question but how does CDOT and other agencies w/ploughs organize the the ploughing - by street, 'hood, ward, or other geographic criteria?

Just saw the salt truck make a pass going north on Damen by the Brown line station. 

I think it's on a grid pattern where streets are designated by priority with major streets getting top priority followed by smaller streets and residential streets.  http://clearstreets.org/ has a nice interface to see what streets the city plowed and when.  Looking at the data, it looks like most of edgewater hasn't been touched.


globalguy said:

Kind of an obvious question but how does CDOT and other agencies w/ploughs organize the the ploughing - by street, 'hood, ward, or other geographic criteria?

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