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Plowing bare roads in St. Lawrence County is waste of time and money

Posted 2/10/16

I can’t believe how many state, county, and town snowplows I’ve seen in recent weeks running the bare and wet roads (some scraping bare roads)…or cutting back nonexistent road shoulder buildup. …

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Plowing bare roads in St. Lawrence County is waste of time and money

Posted

I can’t believe how many state, county, and town snowplows I’ve seen in recent weeks running the bare and wet roads (some scraping bare roads)…or cutting back nonexistent road shoulder buildup. All while anticipating above freezing temperatures in the foreseeable forecast.

Just let it melt! I know the roads are bare because I just traveled it within the last hour in nearly 40 degree weather with temps rising to 50 degrees! I could hear the plow scraping the bare road a good 30 seconds (or ¼ mile) before I actually saw the truck go by.

Don’t our controllers realize there is money to be saved by not having to have them on the roads? How about the money that could be saved in fuel, truck wear, plow wear, road wear, not to mention labor to drive the trucks, fix the trucks, and replace the prematurely worn plow blades?

I imagine the labor is a given because of union contracts.

Apparently, it’s more important to keep the union happy, and that everybody stays busy using up their budgets than to save tax dollars.

Heaven forbid, we wouldn’t want to have to reduce our budgets for next year because we didn’t use them this year. I can’t believe the taxpayer money that is being wasted, especially when we are already seeing budget shortfalls.

On occasion in the past, I’ve traveled through Vermont on snowy, icy days with obvious snow build up on the roads and nary a plow in sight.

Their low budget answer…install reader board signs that post “poor road conditions, reduce speed.” Well, that may not be the best approach either but it seems like there ought to be a happy medium somewhere. Wake up people!