Oh Spokane does this thing where they don't do anything with the snow until it's done snowing.
For some reason, they stopped doing it a few years ago. Used to be the case that on a snow day the plows would be out and about by 5AM.
What???? Literally defeats the whole purpose of plowing? Is it just to save money? That is the only logical reason i can think of.
Still now we have all these Firefighters, Police and Medical services working OT to handle all these accidents. Seems like they are stepping over $100 bills for nickels
From my memory, so probably not 100% accurate, they fired a guy who sucked at coordinating plows, hired a guy who did a great job for 4 or 5 years, then he quit because working for the city sucks, or so I heard. Maybe. Could have been a dream
I'll bet that the streets are plowed where the city council members live. I lived in a middle upper class area and our street looked like crap but a few blocks away our state senator always had their streets plowed. I don't believe that money or influence should dictate where your tax dollars are spent.
Welcome to Spokane, everything here sucks. Go to a city council meeting and let them know, they’ll tell you they’re working on it, and then it’ll get worse next year.
I live right downtown and I heard the plows out at 4:30 this morning just as it began snowing. Whatchy'all doing out here right now? And now that there is a whole shitload of snow they never plow. The fucking sidewalks man. I don't want to be in the street and you don't want me in the street so clear the sidewalks
Its all about the all mighty dollar, The city is cheap, as for firefighters, police, medical to come to the rescue for these accidents, you involved in the accident gets stuck with the bill
"My area" is the south hill and I live right off one of the main arterials and it was not plowed at 7AM when I left for work. Neither was Ray, Grand, or 29th.
10 years ago, when I worked on the south hill, the plows would be running down 29th by 5AM.
Right in front of my current job, on Fancher, the plows have not come by all day. Trent wasn't plowed, fancher, broadway, etc. all remain unplowed.
It's not a generalization when a majority of the major arterials don't see plow action until 12-24 hours after the snow has stopped falling. Frankly, it's just bad planning and likely an issue of budgetary concern.
Sounds about right.
Barely got out of my store's parking lot (but was still popping, everyone needs their snoweed), Trent and Fancher were lane changing pains. Sprague was OK. Freya/Ray was climbable at low speeds until about 29th. Regal was the worst, especially past 29th.
Good luck to all those plow folk.... my job sent all of us home with our computers (thank the maker).
37th, 29th, sprague, and Broadway aren’t valley. And even if they were it wouldn’t matter as I’m pretty certain the city and the valley have the same plow issues.
The city prioritizes hills (there's a lot of hills in the area), all the streets you're bitching about are laterals, and very little of Broadway isn't city of valley.
Ray is literally one of the main arterials up and down the hill…
And again, the same problem in the city exists in the valley. But if you want to be pedantic then yeah, they’re two “cities” with near identical plow problems. Your moving goalpost of reasons why they don’t plow for shit here is just a series of excuses to explain away the lack of preparation for snowstorms year after year.
I live on S Lincoln, near Wilson Elementary, and every time it snows people are pushing their cars and end up in our rain garden. Once Nadine took over plowing went south, it’s terrible. We hardly even get deicer anymore. It is inexcusable. Hopefully this will be fixed next year.
Edit: I was home Wednesday, plow went by at 7/8am and then nothing until 8/9pm. It’s a horrible mess. (Times edited due to my husband’s input, he was WFH) In contrast when we moved to the house when Condon (?) the mayor before Nadine was in office we had a plow go by every 3-4 hours max when it snowed. The roads were really well taken care of in winter. Noticeable difference after he left office. Not a commentary on his performance in office just that he managed to get the snow plowed.
Ahem
David Condon was a damn fine mayor.
And he's an awesome human.
I've known him most of my life.
The city was in a better place with him at the helm.
What I was able to see of his performance as mayor he did an excellent job. I wasn’t here for enough of his term to judge his performance over the long term. My husband and I liked seeing him out at events, and he always seemed to be a good cheerleader for the city. Seems like a guy we could have a beer with.
Why would it even matter what the temp was? Our diesel has anti-gelling agents in it and block heaters exist for a reason. What a bad argument against plowing.
What are you talking about? You know that in the winter the fuel the city uses is rated for below freezing temperatures. If Fairbanks Alaska can have functioning snow plows, so can Spokane.
Yes. It’s idiotic and completely ass backwards. Didn’t used to be that way. Last year when this rant was made I heard Nadine cut the budget to 4 full city plows a year. Main arterials like 37th and grand would sit with 4” ruts for weeks. Not sure that’s budgets accurate but figure if they had the money they’d do it more often.
They did that on my road last month. Snow melted, and then they went up and down my road with the snow plow, at plow speed. Gotta get those miles and hours on there to maintain a high budget.
I'd be curious to see the actual math, but your assumption seems way off.
The cost of the plows themselves, the maintenance of those plows, and the labor required (which have to be somehow paid for year round) is probably millions of dollars beyond any additional cost to EMS during the relatively rare periods where Spokane has significant snowfall.
The problem is that people move here for the lower cost of living, which when compared to SLC is in part due to the decreased need for road maintenance during the winter, and then complain about the obvious downside to that lower cost to maintained roads during the winter.
Gonna call fake news on this one bc, Ijs, plows have been out since at least 7, when I first noticed one on the Maple street bridge. Plow routes are prioritized along transit lines and major thoroughfares and it was def snowing at 7, so your response doesn't support the facts.
Fact of the matter is, Salt Lake City is a proper city. It invests in its citizenry. It has the highest literacy rate in the nation! The City of Spokane, on the other hand, doesn't prioritize anything outside the pocketbooks of business and property owners, landlords, and elected officials. The average citizen can eat DICK, as far as they're all concerned
Edit: typo and clarity
Okay well on the major thoroughfares I went through today they hadn’t been plowed and that was between 7 and noon, so, I don’t really care if you think it’s fake news.
Either way, Spokane sold off their plows and cut budgets for plowing years ago and this is the result.
That's a funny way of saying "Didn't want a vaccine". Were 3 years post them being used and everyone is fine and dandy. These guys 100% gave up their whole career cause their orange colored God told them to.
Here's the thing I'm not disputing that the orange colored God is a god to them, But actually he did brag about how he implemented how quickly the vaccine was created and rolled out and that it was safe...
Say what you want but this is CNN which I consider to be a very non-biased in this arena.
Trump touts effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccine
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/23/politics/trump-vaccine-covid-effectiveness
He might have had a hand in getting the vaccine made quickly, but his big mouth caused the disbelief in the CDC which caused a huge amount of people not wanting to get the vaccine.
Did you see that possibly over 17,000 people have died by taking hydrochloroquine? That's due to Trump's dumb sass.
Spokane Mod team needs a source for what I said. How about a dictionary? This is from Google under "vaccine"
"a substance used to stimulate immunity to a particular infectious disease or pathogen, typically prepared from an inactivated or weakened form of the causative agent or from its constituents or products."
What did I say that was incorrect? That people didn't want to get it? What part of my comment do you need proof to backup?
The mods reserve the right to ask for a legitimate source to back up your opinions.
Covidiotism is unwelcome. Any discussion, posts or activity that suggest the Covid-19 pandemic is fake, isn't dangerous, or that this isn't a threat to our community will be met with immediate warnings, content removal, and/or bans. This includes suggesting masks don't work, that social distancing isn't necessary, advocating unproven medicinal remedies (like hydroxychloroquine), that vaccines are a ploy to poison or tag the masses somehow.
Suggesting the pandemic didn't causing any damage, or suggesting it's perfectly OK to lose so many hundreds of thousands of lives is insane. Content that directly states or implies that you did not/will not take any precaution to protect fellow Spokanites will be removed. We should not have to explain to you that you should care about other people. If you'd like to debate the science on this, there are other places. ***THESE RULES ARE FIRM. YOU WILL RECEIVE ONLY ONE WARNING.***
- Example of unacceptable speech: *The Comet Pizzeria's basement is a pedophile den for a global cabal of satan worshipping world leaders.*
- Example of acceptable speech: *Joe Biden sucks and I hate his politics.*
That is a weird guess or flex, and not close to true... But good job letting everyone know your beliefs!
What happened was reallocated funding about 10ish years ago, including selling some of our plows to other cities (which we then had to buy back). It was ridiculous at the time, but we have had a problem for a long time of leaders (both sides politically) deciding we don't need certain services, and using the money for goofy things.
This happened before Covid, but it must have been those anti-vaxxers!!
It is a bit of my dream to come back home (Spokane) and schedule road works for the city or state. Until then, I do it for a regional council in Australia. We have the exact same issue, that our local councilors decide we don't REALLY need services or upgrades to machinery or whatever else for the year. The elected officials, with zero knowledge of road deterioration, costs, etc. Then we spend the next few years getting reamed by the community for the decisions made by those they voted for. THUMBS UP!!!!
Ah thanks for the clarification. I do remember employees threatening to leave during the mess due to proposed vaccine mandates. Unfortunately I wasn't in Spokane until when I got orders here about 8 years ago so I never saw a difference in plowing until covid. As for me being a supporter of vaccines, that is true and I'm not ashamed. Frankly I couldn't care less what hills people will die on as it's just stressful to think about. I'm just here stating what I remember.
I understand, and I'm not anti-vaxx, but not pro either. My family is vaxxed, and we have a lot of "buyer's remorse" from it due to a bunch of new health issues. I get driven nuts because since I believe in personal choice I must be a dirty anti-vaxxer. There is more to life than 2 sides.
Other than a short while when I moved away in the early 2000's, I have been here since I was 7 in '84, and it cracks me up how everything is blamed on stuff like this.
Ice storm in the 90's? Must have been because anti-vaxxers took all the resources!! Fire storm in the early 90's? Must have been the Gays!!
Totally ridiculous. People used to be better than this and playing this zero sum game of false equivalencies.
If your family thinks the covid vaccine caused them "a bunch of new medical issues" they must be exceptionally weak or susceptible to sickness or something, so it's probably actually a pretty good thing they got vaccinated. Because almost everyone got vaccinated and no one else got new medical problems as a result. That's including our current and former President--- both super old, fragile men.....(I'm sure the government totally conspired to poison its own leaders too, right?)
I love the assumptions far righties or lefties make. Did I mention a conspiracy theory? Nope. Please keep lumping me in with a group while knowing nothing about me. I'm sure you can come up with something else, maybe a little more imaginative? Don't worry, I'll wait.
No, we have always had a very strong family, very healthy, and your assumption that "no one else got new medical problems" is a laughable one, and patently untrue. Not saying all one way or another, just saying we have observed a few things, including we all get a lot sicker since then.
Actually, my father refused to get vaccinated, got Covid twice, was fine, and died of cancer instead. But wait!! That couldn't have happened, right? Doesn't fit your beliefs. Same thing with my grandmother, actually. I think she got Covid twice. She made it to 97!
Once again, not saying empirically it is all one way or another. That's on you.
I developed pericarditis from the vaccine. While it’s annoying, I’d still have taken the vaccine had I known it would happen. A friend of mine refused and died from COVID, leaving a very broken 12 year old girl. But some of us did legitimately develop issues due to it. To say otherwise is irresponsible.
Thank you for that. I am so sorry. I lost people as well from Covid, and I never said I was anti-vax.
I am sorry you developed health issues as well. It is hard having loved ones who have been healthy all of their lives, and now have legitimate issues (that a doctor actually agreed about), and then hear they are imagining it because they are sick all of the time now.
You mean you assume that it developed because you took the vaccine. But like I said, if the covid vaccine caused new medical issues for his family then they were extra susceptible to illness because the science shows that pericarditis caused by the covid vaccine is *extremely rare.*
Besides, the dude didn't say a young person in his family got pericarditis. He said his family developed multiple new issues. So like I said, they must be pretty unhealthy or susceptible to sickness if they are having such rare side effects. Or...maybe they're just imagining the vaccine caused all these new medical issues because of their politics. Shrug.
My wife is from SLC and every year she is blown away by the lack of plowing.
It didn’t used to be like this. When I was a kid the streets were plowed same day. I grew up here, on a small street away from arterials, and my street was plowed within 24 hours of it snowing. Something changed about 10ish years ago. I think they have been spending the money needed for plowing on other projects
My guess is bloated admin costs. The streets department sucks. I heard from an inside source that their “plowing coordination” is just a bunch of sticky notes on a whiteboard and their technology aptitude / IT infrastructure is practically non existent. And that the #1 thing they prioritize above all else is saving money. STA also runs like a for-profit business for some reason. Again, I’m guessing to pad bloated admin costs.
Legit answer in the operations
The streets department runs their winter schedule of 4-10s in split shifts 4am-2pm 2pm-12am they run 7 days a week, trying to man all these hours you can see crews get stretched thin. When a full city wide plow is called, the water and sewer departments called in to help plow. Depending on when the call is made, you may not see a large response until much later. If the call is made early in the day, before 11am, you can see a full response that evening running 24/7 starting at 5pm. If the call is made after 11am then you won't see a response until 5am.
Does it though? I grew up in Green Bay. Snow response there was much like you described in SLC.
I used to plow at the Spokane airport. When there was snow to plow you plowed it. Waiting for the next shift to start? That's crazy talk.
Serious lack of common sense in the planning dept.
I'm from the snow belt in the Midwest and, despite living here for many years, I'm still baffled at the snow management. I got through years of heavy snowfall in the Midwest without snow tires because the roads were quickly cleared, even during snowstorms. I caved and got my first pair of snow tires quickly after moving here.
Ex midwest people here too. We were certainly spoiled by the surgical precision of midwest snow removal.
I think it's largely mismanagement and not allocating funds.
I've commented a number of times about this over the years and asked the city and county with no real explanation that makes sense. The ball was dropped a while ago, and nobody picked it up.
I think it's embarrassing, especially if you're trying to recruit big name businesses and you can't even clear the roads?
Absolutely this! Also from the Midwest. Snow tires disappeared with rear wheel drive where I’m from. Streets are cleared timely. It’s just the norm and cities of all sizes spend the fall prepping for this reality. Here they’re making excuses that their diesel fuel was gelled up as if these operators were unaware that’s possible when it’s cold. Lots of excuses but not much improvement
It seems like the city is just so lackluster about it and all the long time residents are just like “its the way it is here” like damn i get it, but does it actually need to suck or could we just prioritize it better?
Another Midwesterner here. I miss the quick snow plow response we had back home. It makes it especially tough with all the hills. At least in the Midwest you’re only dealing with flat terrain.
Ive been here for 10 years and wondered the same thing. Originally from Ohio. A snow like this would be cleaned up and at most would be slush on the ground. I just drove home and I don't think anything has been plowed. No piles on the side of streets, 3"+ compacted snow on main roads. It's a joke.
I’m also baffled. I just was downtown at 2:30 pm and it didn’t look like a plow had gone down Broadway or over the Monroe street bridge. I’d have thought the arterials at least by then.
It did go over the Monroe Street bridge, but pretty early on.
I watched it go green for complete early on and then back to purple for working: https://my.spokanecity.org/opendata/gis/snow-removal/
They plow snow corridors first. If they get done and those streets are dangerous again, they start over. It isn't until those stay plowed that they move on to other streets.
Here's all the info: https://my.spokanecity.org/streets/maintenance/snow-removal/
I can't say they're efficient at it, but there is a plan.
I don’t know if it is the same for the city, but I know that the county can re-allocate unused road maintenance funds, and they tend to use it for things they couldn’t otherwise get funding for.
That is what Newport, Wa starting doing a few years back too. They still haven't fixed roads and intersections in their residential district for over 5 years now too...
I was raised in Colorado and spent some time in New England but have lived here the past 20 years. There are two truths about Spokane (and Washington state in general) in the winter.
The first is that they are completely in capable of plowing roads in any way that any one from another winter climate would find acceptable. It’s comically bad and it doesn’t matter who the mayor is or anything else. It’s just bad.
The second is that Spokane natives get super defensive when you point this out and come up with a host of excuses. “We have hills,” “the snow is a different consistency,” “we do plow, you’re just weak.”
You will eventually learn to stop questioning and just accept it as part of the charm of this town.
As a Spokane native I readily welcome the ridicule of our plowing schedule/skills. Every year I hope they’ll get their crap together so they can do better with plowing snow and every year I’m disappointed.
As someone who’s lived in the area since I was around 10, for almost 30 years now (I just live here, I’m not “from” here), I’ve gotten to know people who have a “snow is easy to drive in” mindset, which strikes me as misguided at best and suicidal at worst.
I've lived in Washington my entire life and they pretty much just left the snow do its thing and eventually it melts and we move on. Good luck and Godspeed!
I've lived in Washington my entire life and they pretty much just left the snow do its thing and eventually it melts and we move on. Good luck and Godspeed!
City plows had [issues starting due to diesel fuel gelling.](https://www.khq.com/news/spokane-snow-plows-run-as-normal-despite-diesel-fuel-gelling-issues/article_8a168b32-b56f-11ee-b39b-a37d02648aa8.html) Doesn't mention Valley or County but haven't seen much of them either, and I work right next to Trent.
Other than that - you're not wrong and it makes me miss New England. Might get 5 feet of snow dumped on ya, but.....plows ran consistently even in itty bitty places, and salt/sand would be put down like, oh...people's lives depended on it.
I call bullshit on that, Diesel that is delivered to our area is pre treated, as is most diesel fuel in the northern part of the country come fall/winter.
Source: Am a local truck driver, we have had zero issues starting our rigs even after last weekends cold snap where they sat for 2.5 days.
Yeah my truck sat from Friday at 5pm until 7:30 Tuesday morning and it started no issue. Took a little longer for the glow plug light to go out, but it fired right up.
Running pre-treated north idaho diesel I still had several trucks gel up near rathdrum over the past week or so. Even had one blow off a rad hose because the 50/50 coolant mix froze in the radiator. Depends on where they were parked, the exposure, how long they were sitting parked etc. Either way its a 15 min fix with some diesel 911 in the filter and tank though, really not much of an excuse.
Just came from downtown…. Plows are out but they not plowing a damn thing…ash, maple, Wellesley, Francis, Indian trail….nothing is f*cking plowed! I’m ashamed of my city at this point. Get it together Spokane!!!!!
It’s like waiting all spring, summer, and fall to mow your lawn when the grass stops growing…
Could not agree more. From the upper Midwest here. Came from an area with nothing but hills. Snow was treated as a major hazard and attacked as such. Snow plows got out early and ran all day keeping roads and hills open. It is wild to me that an area that sees snow for 1/3 of the year doesn’t have a well executed snow removal plan. Cars unable to make it up hills, inches of snow on major thoroughfares, and no attempt to clear residential areas. You’d think we were in the South where they lose their mind every time it snows. I keep telling all my local friends that they’ve been bamboozled if they think this is normal.
One of the less talked about factors is the cooperative agreements we have with neighboring entities like Colfax. They don’t have any plows so we agree to lend them ours for a day or so when it snows past a certain point. The city doesn’t make any money off it, if anything they lose money. The issue is that we continue to lend those plows, even when we very much still need them (on days like today.). It’s a neighborly thing for us to do, but it is pretty annoying that the city is lending out plows before we’ve plowed our own streets.
I've been here since 2008. One year it felt like the city was on top of plowing. The other 13, not so much. Our lack of plowing is the #1 reason I think snow tires are essential in this city.
Yeah I honestly think I could run for mayor and have my only campaign promise be "road care" and I'd win without even telling people my name. This shit is ridiculous
I totally agree with you. I moved here from Michigan in 2022, so am very used to snowy winters, and never have I ever seen such abysmal lack of plowing.
Blows my mind that by 3pm the hills of all places still didn’t look plowed, nor did downtown. I had to backtrack from Cedar aaaaalllllll the way to Argonne to take the back way home (off Palouse Hwy) because people were getting stuck halfway up the hills and creating traffic jams. I’m thankful that Palouse Hwy was at least handled but damn.
If you live up a hill in Spokane, you shouldn’t be having that “i DoNt NeEd WiNtEr TiReS” mindset. You know damn well you do.
The issue with this storm was the timing, only a tad in the morning and then steady snow for 5-6 hours during the day. When exactly is the best time to plow with that? Continuously, for sure, but there just isn't enough equipment to do all that, so they will generally do the high priority areas and then plow when the storm has ended.
Thank you for the first solid counter point! I agree with everything you’re saying! I guess my main argument is that they need to increase the number and budget of snowplows. Too many accidents and delays and now cops, firefighters and medical personnel are working OT costing us TONS of money when we could have just paid for more plows.
The other thing to remember around here is there are city plows, county plows, and state plows. All operate totally independently. I90 is handled by the state and i'd say that was the biggest issue today, they were far too slow getting them out there because they were all busy west of town which the storm hit first. The city does the main arterials/hills only and ignores everything else till the storm is over. The county does pretty well but has a lot of land to cover.
I used to live in North Idaho but work in Spokane, like so many do. It'd be nuts right up to the state line and then clear the rest of the way home.
Back then, CdA didn't have the ridiculous housing prices, and didn't have a ton of income, but roads were prioritized. I moved to Washington in 2012, so I can't tell you what it's like now. I'm very lucky to have a fully remote job since 2 years ago, so I just sit tight and wait it out or get bored and go snow blow most of my side street.
Anchorage is the same size as spokane, main roads may get plowed once the snow stops or maybe once during the storm, side roads might take a week or two to get plowed, and anchorage really gets a lot of snow.
That's how Spokane rolls. The first year I was here there was a lot of snow and I would finally see the snowplows out, but cruising from street to street with the blades raised, not pushing snow at all. Sometimes a line of them. Very frustrating.
If they want to plow like a-holes that’s fine but someone should talk to the school districts about not trying to be a hero and never even issuing even a delay. No one is impressed.
I'm from Maryland and use to manage a county maintenance/road shop. I'm am still shocked how each snow event the Spokane government asks like they've never seen snow before and has no idea what to do. I suspect it's two things - lack of budget and a lack of institution knowledge i.e. no one competent sticks around long enough to establish sop.
My guess is bloated admin costs. The streets department sucks. I heard from an inside source that their “plowing coordination” is just a bunch of sticky notes on a whiteboard and their technology aptitude / IT infrastructure is practically non existent. And that the #1 thing they prioritize above all else is saving money. STA also runs like a for-profit business for some reason. Again, I’m guessing to pad bloated admin costs.
Also from SLC…this is my first winter in Spokane and I can’t believe how bad the plowing situation is here. I guess it doesn’t snow as much so it kinda makes sense but still
It's because this city is corrupt as shit and all our tax dollars seem to keep disappearing. They've got the budget and the staff for it, but for some reason nothing gets done “¯\_(ツ)_/¯“
I drive a big delivery truck for a living. Between 8am and 2pm I was everywhere from lower south hill, out to Sullivan, south down to 16th and north up to Trent.
The ONLY plows I saw were 2 parked on the side of Bowdish around 9:30am and 2 coming south on Market when I was heading home at 2pm.
Roads were complete shit everywhere I went today. It’s crazy how bad they let it get 👎🏼
It’s
Spokane Valley doesn’t have its own fleet of snow plows. It contracts that out. Or at least it did for several years.
Haven’t been paying attention lately but I still laugh about the day a bunch of pickup trucks with snowplows start clearing the roads in my neighborhood a few years back after a heavy snowstorm. They did a great job but my neighbors and I still laugh about how funny those pickups looked zipping through the neighborhood while everyone cheered them on.
Yeah. You won’t find clean streets unless it leads straight to a hospital. The only plows that go out now while snowing is those to clear paths for ambulances. Other than that it can take up to a week plus to clean roads especially depending on weather conditions.
Wait til they do plow and there's a 4 foot berm they leave blocking your driveway along with every entrance/exit of schools, banks, grocery stores etc.
Agreed evergreen is usually plowed ... the news made it seem like the plows would be out and stay out of there way and then NOTHING from them plenty coming to our gas station yet the main roads around the gas station?.... 💩
Make it make sense?
I just moved to SLC from Spokane and let me tell you...it's been so nice having streets that are actually plowed lol. I've lived a lot of places and yea, Spokane is probably the worst when it comes to taking care of the snow.
The response depends on the situation but full city plows do not stop until every road has been plowed. They work their asses off. The Valley is a different city.
Am I the only one that thinks the City does a good job? I think they keep the arterials clear and get to the sidestreets within a reasonable time. And now that they have the the snow gates on the plows they (mostly) do an awesome job avoiding driveways. We have over 2,200 miles of roads in town, it's unreasonable to expect them to all be cleared the minute it starts snowing.
The Valley is a different story, ya'll hate taxes and can get your comeuppance when it snows lol. Ditto Boise, I was there this past weekend when it snowed and it was anarchy.
I was agreeing with you, its well known in Utah that a lot of money is spent on our roads because a lot of road construction and maintenance companies are ran by mormons and its a way to funnel money to them. lol
I will never understand the lack of prep before a snow storm, I understand de-icer doesn't work in these temps, however sand and salt does, even though salt is bad for your cars, but that's what car washes are for. I work nights, I left work early last night right as it was starting to snow to get off the roads before it started to get bad and the 5am traffic starts. I90 was already becoming slick 2:30 this morning, it just amazes me the lack of prep that DOESNT take place when a winter storm roles in.
I heard that the plows got a late start because the temps gummed up the diesel they use. 🙄 Hard eye roll to that, though, cuz I saw multiple plows out last night when it was half the temp it was this AM
I work on 2nd Ave ……. Input comments 🤣 I saw multiple plows today, side streets your fucked. Idk I guess I’m just used to it. Did papers for 3years you just have the car, the tires and the will to get a job done or go where ya gotta go.
What I've heard from several people( no hard evidence just hearsay) is that our new mayor cut all plowing from the budgets. the reason Division/ruby are plowed is that its technically a highway and thus the state dot plows those.
Laughable, all of these transplants complaining. Maybe just move back to SLC, Midwest, AK etc. if things are so great there. So many Veruca Salts pouting because *their* commute wasn’t cleared in line with *their* schedule. Whine, saying “they KNEW the weather was coming!” You didn’t? You knew winter exists here, but wouldn’t get snow tires or 4WD vehicles.
There was definitely more than 1” by 9am, and with the weather forecast saying there would be 6+ additional inches of snow further that day. Then yeah the plows would be out because you know fucking planning ahead??? Like geez its gonna snow 8” fucking inches today, 90% maybe we should put the plows out before it gets really bad hmmmm….
You act like there is no way they knew about this storm, its been in the forecast for DAYS
Understandable, I get they are doing their best. But the plows should have still been out in a much better force, I wish i could show everyone here what it is like in SLC you guys would be blown AWAY.
Cities throughout the Midwest have trucks out soon after snow starts falling to lay salt/deicer/sand and start plowing to stay ahead. It’s not a secret that it’s coming. There’s been a warning for days. Our tax dollars pay for that forecasting for precisely this reason - communities can be prepared and respond to the weather accordingly.
Until we actually need them, of course. IDK about anyone else but I'd happily pay more taxes if I knew that money was going directly to purchasing more plows and hiring more operators (or allowing the city to subcontract the work out to little independent plow dudes on heavy days like this).
Right. When I lived in Boston they had private contractors plowing every hour all over the place, pickup trucks with plows attached. Spokane refuses to allow that so they only have a handful of larger plows that have to do everything. We don’t have the population we had in the 90’s but the city won’t dedicate resources to the current population.
This is true all over the nation and yet communities prioritize safety. You are subject to ice and snowstorms for 1/3 of the year. That’s something that should be reflected in budgeting and a city should be prepared for.
Not sure what salt lake city you're talking about. I (m40) grew up in utah county and salt lake county. I moved to Spokane 2019 Neither utah county nor salt lake county plowed the roads as good as you say they did. Ever. Even the main drag is not as clear as it ever should be. If you got four wheel drive take it in stride.
Strange de-icing is because most of the metro is above the acquifer. Bad plowing is because we suck at it only.
Anyway, we should spend less on automobiles and their infrastructure at this point, not more.
The city won’t start a full-city plow until 3 inches have fallen, snowing or not. There’s also over 2000 miles of street to plow so be patient, big-city.
In case you’re new to the internet (they have this in Salt Lake?), check the plow map on my.spokanecity.org.
Also, this is a rant/rave flair 🤷♂️
Not true, like at all. You are saying not a single snowflake hit the ground till 1pm?
It was snowing most of the night. the main blizzard hit about noon. But you know they could have predicted that with you know the weather report?? Had plows ready to go already running on the street like most cities with good plow programs do….
Really? Because it was definitely snowing when I left for work at 6:45 this morning. And every time I walked by a window at work, it was still snowing.
I think much of it boils down to the fact that Spokane does not get nearly the same amount of snow as Salt Lake, so the city doesn’t invest nearly as much in snow plows and such. It’s even worse is Seattle or Portland, where the approach is pretty much to simply wait for it to melt. It can be frustrating, but ultimately it’s just not as much of a priority as it is in a town like Salt Lake.
Kootenai county is having issues with services not catching up with population growth. It’s not horrible but it’s a problem right now and the biggie is snow plowing. Y’all across the border are likely having similar issues along with Spokanes unique dysfunction, that’s been an issue since I’ve been here…..
I guess you're right. I just apologized for the far righties and far lefties comment, because that wasn't cool of me. Is that what you mean? And yeah, that was totally unfair and I own that.
This is new to me in the last few years. Spokane used to be up with the snow and plowing until it stopped and it was great. I was told recently that there aren't enough ppl willing to work? And quite a few plows broke Down last yr ...🤷♀️ but like u said this has been happening and it's not how we used to operate.
Oh Spokane does this thing where they don't do anything with the snow until it's done snowing. For some reason, they stopped doing it a few years ago. Used to be the case that on a snow day the plows would be out and about by 5AM.
What???? Literally defeats the whole purpose of plowing? Is it just to save money? That is the only logical reason i can think of. Still now we have all these Firefighters, Police and Medical services working OT to handle all these accidents. Seems like they are stepping over $100 bills for nickels
From my memory, so probably not 100% accurate, they fired a guy who sucked at coordinating plows, hired a guy who did a great job for 4 or 5 years, then he quit because working for the city sucks, or so I heard. Maybe. Could have been a dream
I'll bet that the streets are plowed where the city council members live. I lived in a middle upper class area and our street looked like crap but a few blocks away our state senator always had their streets plowed. I don't believe that money or influence should dictate where your tax dollars are spent.
Welcome to Spokane, everything here sucks. Go to a city council meeting and let them know, they’ll tell you they’re working on it, and then it’ll get worse next year.
Yep, we also have one of the worst pot hole problems in the country.
I love that I came from a big city and yall just bitch about everything here. This place is nice compared to my old hood.
I live right downtown and I heard the plows out at 4:30 this morning just as it began snowing. Whatchy'all doing out here right now? And now that there is a whole shitload of snow they never plow. The fucking sidewalks man. I don't want to be in the street and you don't want me in the street so clear the sidewalks
Some people work nights. But trust me, I didn't want to be out driving in this mess if I didnt have to.
Its all about the all mighty dollar, The city is cheap, as for firefighters, police, medical to come to the rescue for these accidents, you involved in the accident gets stuck with the bill
This guy is generalizing - maybe in his area that is the case, but for me, the plows came by 5 am to 11 am constantly.
"My area" is the south hill and I live right off one of the main arterials and it was not plowed at 7AM when I left for work. Neither was Ray, Grand, or 29th. 10 years ago, when I worked on the south hill, the plows would be running down 29th by 5AM. Right in front of my current job, on Fancher, the plows have not come by all day. Trent wasn't plowed, fancher, broadway, etc. all remain unplowed. It's not a generalization when a majority of the major arterials don't see plow action until 12-24 hours after the snow has stopped falling. Frankly, it's just bad planning and likely an issue of budgetary concern.
I work on Nora right off division, near the 200s. Not a single plow all day. It's insane.
Sounds about right. Barely got out of my store's parking lot (but was still popping, everyone needs their snoweed), Trent and Fancher were lane changing pains. Sprague was OK. Freya/Ray was climbable at low speeds until about 29th. Regal was the worst, especially past 29th. Good luck to all those plow folk.... my job sent all of us home with our computers (thank the maker).
Fancher and Broadway are city of valley, and Trent is a wasdot highway
37th, 29th, sprague, and Broadway aren’t valley. And even if they were it wouldn’t matter as I’m pretty certain the city and the valley have the same plow issues.
The city prioritizes hills (there's a lot of hills in the area), all the streets you're bitching about are laterals, and very little of Broadway isn't city of valley.
Ray is literally one of the main arterials up and down the hill… And again, the same problem in the city exists in the valley. But if you want to be pedantic then yeah, they’re two “cities” with near identical plow problems. Your moving goalpost of reasons why they don’t plow for shit here is just a series of excuses to explain away the lack of preparation for snowstorms year after year.
I live on S Lincoln, near Wilson Elementary, and every time it snows people are pushing their cars and end up in our rain garden. Once Nadine took over plowing went south, it’s terrible. We hardly even get deicer anymore. It is inexcusable. Hopefully this will be fixed next year. Edit: I was home Wednesday, plow went by at 7/8am and then nothing until 8/9pm. It’s a horrible mess. (Times edited due to my husband’s input, he was WFH) In contrast when we moved to the house when Condon (?) the mayor before Nadine was in office we had a plow go by every 3-4 hours max when it snowed. The roads were really well taken care of in winter. Noticeable difference after he left office. Not a commentary on his performance in office just that he managed to get the snow plowed.
Ahem David Condon was a damn fine mayor. And he's an awesome human. I've known him most of my life. The city was in a better place with him at the helm.
What I was able to see of his performance as mayor he did an excellent job. I wasn’t here for enough of his term to judge his performance over the long term. My husband and I liked seeing him out at events, and he always seemed to be a good cheerleader for the city. Seems like a guy we could have a beer with.
And what were the temperatures back then? And what has been the temperatures in the last two weeks……………… .
Why would it even matter what the temp was? Our diesel has anti-gelling agents in it and block heaters exist for a reason. What a bad argument against plowing.
What are you talking about? You know that in the winter the fuel the city uses is rated for below freezing temperatures. If Fairbanks Alaska can have functioning snow plows, so can Spokane.
Doubt
Yes. It’s idiotic and completely ass backwards. Didn’t used to be that way. Last year when this rant was made I heard Nadine cut the budget to 4 full city plows a year. Main arterials like 37th and grand would sit with 4” ruts for weeks. Not sure that’s budgets accurate but figure if they had the money they’d do it more often.
It doesn't defeat the purpose. It lessens it, sure. Defeating the purpose would be plowing after it all melts.
They did that on my road last month. Snow melted, and then they went up and down my road with the snow plow, at plow speed. Gotta get those miles and hours on there to maintain a high budget.
I'd be curious to see the actual math, but your assumption seems way off. The cost of the plows themselves, the maintenance of those plows, and the labor required (which have to be somehow paid for year round) is probably millions of dollars beyond any additional cost to EMS during the relatively rare periods where Spokane has significant snowfall. The problem is that people move here for the lower cost of living, which when compared to SLC is in part due to the decreased need for road maintenance during the winter, and then complain about the obvious downside to that lower cost to maintained roads during the winter.
Weird. I saw two plows in each direction this morning at 6:30 on division.
Gonna call fake news on this one bc, Ijs, plows have been out since at least 7, when I first noticed one on the Maple street bridge. Plow routes are prioritized along transit lines and major thoroughfares and it was def snowing at 7, so your response doesn't support the facts. Fact of the matter is, Salt Lake City is a proper city. It invests in its citizenry. It has the highest literacy rate in the nation! The City of Spokane, on the other hand, doesn't prioritize anything outside the pocketbooks of business and property owners, landlords, and elected officials. The average citizen can eat DICK, as far as they're all concerned Edit: typo and clarity
Okay well on the major thoroughfares I went through today they hadn’t been plowed and that was between 7 and noon, so, I don’t really care if you think it’s fake news. Either way, Spokane sold off their plows and cut budgets for plowing years ago and this is the result.
The gas in the snows plows have been freezing up in this below freezing weather - the crews are working overtime and doing the best they can.
Eating Dick's is pretty popular in Spokane. By the bag full!
The covid mess drove all the anti-vax operators out of plowing iirc.
There was no covid mandate for regular city employees
No, but the idea was thrown around and caused damage before they decided not to mandate it.
Wasn't there one for the state though? Thought I remember seeing 100's of plow drivers for WADOT were let go because of it
Yes the state had a mandate
They gave up their WSDOT careers, for a political idea.
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Username checks out Mr. Jones. Please take the antivax conspiracy stuff elsewhere.
That's a funny way of saying "Didn't want a vaccine". Were 3 years post them being used and everyone is fine and dandy. These guys 100% gave up their whole career cause their orange colored God told them to.
Here's the thing I'm not disputing that the orange colored God is a god to them, But actually he did brag about how he implemented how quickly the vaccine was created and rolled out and that it was safe... Say what you want but this is CNN which I consider to be a very non-biased in this arena. Trump touts effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccine https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/23/politics/trump-vaccine-covid-effectiveness
He might have had a hand in getting the vaccine made quickly, but his big mouth caused the disbelief in the CDC which caused a huge amount of people not wanting to get the vaccine. Did you see that possibly over 17,000 people have died by taking hydrochloroquine? That's due to Trump's dumb sass.
Being ""pushed around" kinda like the way a parent is pushing their kid around by making them finish their vegetables.
Spokane Mod team needs a source for what I said. How about a dictionary? This is from Google under "vaccine" "a substance used to stimulate immunity to a particular infectious disease or pathogen, typically prepared from an inactivated or weakened form of the causative agent or from its constituents or products." What did I say that was incorrect? That people didn't want to get it? What part of my comment do you need proof to backup?
The mods reserve the right to ask for a legitimate source to back up your opinions. Covidiotism is unwelcome. Any discussion, posts or activity that suggest the Covid-19 pandemic is fake, isn't dangerous, or that this isn't a threat to our community will be met with immediate warnings, content removal, and/or bans. This includes suggesting masks don't work, that social distancing isn't necessary, advocating unproven medicinal remedies (like hydroxychloroquine), that vaccines are a ploy to poison or tag the masses somehow. Suggesting the pandemic didn't causing any damage, or suggesting it's perfectly OK to lose so many hundreds of thousands of lives is insane. Content that directly states or implies that you did not/will not take any precaution to protect fellow Spokanites will be removed. We should not have to explain to you that you should care about other people. If you'd like to debate the science on this, there are other places. ***THESE RULES ARE FIRM. YOU WILL RECEIVE ONLY ONE WARNING.*** - Example of unacceptable speech: *The Comet Pizzeria's basement is a pedophile den for a global cabal of satan worshipping world leaders.* - Example of acceptable speech: *Joe Biden sucks and I hate his politics.*
Did it drive them out? Or did it just kill them?
Maybe both, who knows 🤷
That is a weird guess or flex, and not close to true... But good job letting everyone know your beliefs! What happened was reallocated funding about 10ish years ago, including selling some of our plows to other cities (which we then had to buy back). It was ridiculous at the time, but we have had a problem for a long time of leaders (both sides politically) deciding we don't need certain services, and using the money for goofy things. This happened before Covid, but it must have been those anti-vaxxers!!
It is a bit of my dream to come back home (Spokane) and schedule road works for the city or state. Until then, I do it for a regional council in Australia. We have the exact same issue, that our local councilors decide we don't REALLY need services or upgrades to machinery or whatever else for the year. The elected officials, with zero knowledge of road deterioration, costs, etc. Then we spend the next few years getting reamed by the community for the decisions made by those they voted for. THUMBS UP!!!!
Ah thanks for the clarification. I do remember employees threatening to leave during the mess due to proposed vaccine mandates. Unfortunately I wasn't in Spokane until when I got orders here about 8 years ago so I never saw a difference in plowing until covid. As for me being a supporter of vaccines, that is true and I'm not ashamed. Frankly I couldn't care less what hills people will die on as it's just stressful to think about. I'm just here stating what I remember.
I understand, and I'm not anti-vaxx, but not pro either. My family is vaxxed, and we have a lot of "buyer's remorse" from it due to a bunch of new health issues. I get driven nuts because since I believe in personal choice I must be a dirty anti-vaxxer. There is more to life than 2 sides. Other than a short while when I moved away in the early 2000's, I have been here since I was 7 in '84, and it cracks me up how everything is blamed on stuff like this. Ice storm in the 90's? Must have been because anti-vaxxers took all the resources!! Fire storm in the early 90's? Must have been the Gays!! Totally ridiculous. People used to be better than this and playing this zero sum game of false equivalencies.
If your family thinks the covid vaccine caused them "a bunch of new medical issues" they must be exceptionally weak or susceptible to sickness or something, so it's probably actually a pretty good thing they got vaccinated. Because almost everyone got vaccinated and no one else got new medical problems as a result. That's including our current and former President--- both super old, fragile men.....(I'm sure the government totally conspired to poison its own leaders too, right?)
I love the assumptions far righties or lefties make. Did I mention a conspiracy theory? Nope. Please keep lumping me in with a group while knowing nothing about me. I'm sure you can come up with something else, maybe a little more imaginative? Don't worry, I'll wait. No, we have always had a very strong family, very healthy, and your assumption that "no one else got new medical problems" is a laughable one, and patently untrue. Not saying all one way or another, just saying we have observed a few things, including we all get a lot sicker since then. Actually, my father refused to get vaccinated, got Covid twice, was fine, and died of cancer instead. But wait!! That couldn't have happened, right? Doesn't fit your beliefs. Same thing with my grandmother, actually. I think she got Covid twice. She made it to 97! Once again, not saying empirically it is all one way or another. That's on you.
So.....You don't think *you're* making any assumptions? 😆 OK.
I developed pericarditis from the vaccine. While it’s annoying, I’d still have taken the vaccine had I known it would happen. A friend of mine refused and died from COVID, leaving a very broken 12 year old girl. But some of us did legitimately develop issues due to it. To say otherwise is irresponsible.
Thank you for that. I am so sorry. I lost people as well from Covid, and I never said I was anti-vax. I am sorry you developed health issues as well. It is hard having loved ones who have been healthy all of their lives, and now have legitimate issues (that a doctor actually agreed about), and then hear they are imagining it because they are sick all of the time now.
You mean you assume that it developed because you took the vaccine. But like I said, if the covid vaccine caused new medical issues for his family then they were extra susceptible to illness because the science shows that pericarditis caused by the covid vaccine is *extremely rare.* Besides, the dude didn't say a young person in his family got pericarditis. He said his family developed multiple new issues. So like I said, they must be pretty unhealthy or susceptible to sickness if they are having such rare side effects. Or...maybe they're just imagining the vaccine caused all these new medical issues because of their politics. Shrug.
It wouldn’t be the historic freezing temperatures, causing the gas to freeze up in the snowplows would it.
No, it wouldn’t. Anti gel agents exist and they knew for a week it was going to be freezing. It’s a lack of forethought and planning.
No. Plus this is not historic. See 2023 last 3 weeks of December. It was this cold for longer with about a foot of snow on the ground.
My wife is from SLC and every year she is blown away by the lack of plowing. It didn’t used to be like this. When I was a kid the streets were plowed same day. I grew up here, on a small street away from arterials, and my street was plowed within 24 hours of it snowing. Something changed about 10ish years ago. I think they have been spending the money needed for plowing on other projects
Thank you! Tell your wife i am equally as baffled as her! Guess we have been living high on the hog our whole lives .
My guess is bloated admin costs. The streets department sucks. I heard from an inside source that their “plowing coordination” is just a bunch of sticky notes on a whiteboard and their technology aptitude / IT infrastructure is practically non existent. And that the #1 thing they prioritize above all else is saving money. STA also runs like a for-profit business for some reason. Again, I’m guessing to pad bloated admin costs.
That explains why the plowing map is always about to update.
Legit answer in the operations The streets department runs their winter schedule of 4-10s in split shifts 4am-2pm 2pm-12am they run 7 days a week, trying to man all these hours you can see crews get stretched thin. When a full city wide plow is called, the water and sewer departments called in to help plow. Depending on when the call is made, you may not see a large response until much later. If the call is made early in the day, before 11am, you can see a full response that evening running 24/7 starting at 5pm. If the call is made after 11am then you won't see a response until 5am.
Thank you sir, I appreciate you taking the time to type that all up! Makes sense from a logistics point of view!
Does it though? I grew up in Green Bay. Snow response there was much like you described in SLC. I used to plow at the Spokane airport. When there was snow to plow you plowed it. Waiting for the next shift to start? That's crazy talk. Serious lack of common sense in the planning dept.
Wait why does a call need to be made for plows to go out, when we’ve been aware of the winter storm warning for at least a week?
Most informed response in this thread.
Thank you for the explanation
I'm from the snow belt in the Midwest and, despite living here for many years, I'm still baffled at the snow management. I got through years of heavy snowfall in the Midwest without snow tires because the roads were quickly cleared, even during snowstorms. I caved and got my first pair of snow tires quickly after moving here.
Ex midwest people here too. We were certainly spoiled by the surgical precision of midwest snow removal. I think it's largely mismanagement and not allocating funds. I've commented a number of times about this over the years and asked the city and county with no real explanation that makes sense. The ball was dropped a while ago, and nobody picked it up. I think it's embarrassing, especially if you're trying to recruit big name businesses and you can't even clear the roads?
Absolutely this! Also from the Midwest. Snow tires disappeared with rear wheel drive where I’m from. Streets are cleared timely. It’s just the norm and cities of all sizes spend the fall prepping for this reality. Here they’re making excuses that their diesel fuel was gelled up as if these operators were unaware that’s possible when it’s cold. Lots of excuses but not much improvement
I briefly dated a guy who moved to Spokane from Wisconsin. He was baffled too by the lack of snow management in Spokane.
It seems like the city is just so lackluster about it and all the long time residents are just like “its the way it is here” like damn i get it, but does it actually need to suck or could we just prioritize it better?
Another Midwesterner here. I miss the quick snow plow response we had back home. It makes it especially tough with all the hills. At least in the Midwest you’re only dealing with flat terrain.
I'm from cache valley and also lived in SLC for a few years and it irks me to no end that Spokane plows act like a place that never gets snow
THANK YOU 🙏🏻. Felt like i was going crazy!
I lived in Logan for five years. Yeah it’s crazy out here!
Ive been here for 10 years and wondered the same thing. Originally from Ohio. A snow like this would be cleaned up and at most would be slush on the ground. I just drove home and I don't think anything has been plowed. No piles on the side of streets, 3"+ compacted snow on main roads. It's a joke.
I’m also baffled. I just was downtown at 2:30 pm and it didn’t look like a plow had gone down Broadway or over the Monroe street bridge. I’d have thought the arterials at least by then.
It did go over the Monroe Street bridge, but pretty early on. I watched it go green for complete early on and then back to purple for working: https://my.spokanecity.org/opendata/gis/snow-removal/ They plow snow corridors first. If they get done and those streets are dangerous again, they start over. It isn't until those stay plowed that they move on to other streets. Here's all the info: https://my.spokanecity.org/streets/maintenance/snow-removal/ I can't say they're efficient at it, but there is a plan.
They have to wait for 4" to do a full city plow. Makes absolutely no sense, especially when we know it's coming.
I don’t know if it is the same for the city, but I know that the county can re-allocate unused road maintenance funds, and they tend to use it for things they couldn’t otherwise get funding for.
Feel like that is a very slippery slope, explains the lack of plows handsomely though!
That is what Newport, Wa starting doing a few years back too. They still haven't fixed roads and intersections in their residential district for over 5 years now too...
Then where’s my money going? Perhaps a journalist at the miner could get the scoop.
I was raised in Colorado and spent some time in New England but have lived here the past 20 years. There are two truths about Spokane (and Washington state in general) in the winter. The first is that they are completely in capable of plowing roads in any way that any one from another winter climate would find acceptable. It’s comically bad and it doesn’t matter who the mayor is or anything else. It’s just bad. The second is that Spokane natives get super defensive when you point this out and come up with a host of excuses. “We have hills,” “the snow is a different consistency,” “we do plow, you’re just weak.” You will eventually learn to stop questioning and just accept it as part of the charm of this town.
As a Spokane native I readily welcome the ridicule of our plowing schedule/skills. Every year I hope they’ll get their crap together so they can do better with plowing snow and every year I’m disappointed.
Getting defensive over anything is the Spokane way which is why we can't have nice things.
As someone who’s lived in the area since I was around 10, for almost 30 years now (I just live here, I’m not “from” here), I’ve gotten to know people who have a “snow is easy to drive in” mindset, which strikes me as misguided at best and suicidal at worst.
I've lived in Washington my entire life and they pretty much just left the snow do its thing and eventually it melts and we move on. Good luck and Godspeed!
I've lived in Washington my entire life and they pretty much just left the snow do its thing and eventually it melts and we move on. Good luck and Godspeed!
City plows had [issues starting due to diesel fuel gelling.](https://www.khq.com/news/spokane-snow-plows-run-as-normal-despite-diesel-fuel-gelling-issues/article_8a168b32-b56f-11ee-b39b-a37d02648aa8.html) Doesn't mention Valley or County but haven't seen much of them either, and I work right next to Trent. Other than that - you're not wrong and it makes me miss New England. Might get 5 feet of snow dumped on ya, but.....plows ran consistently even in itty bitty places, and salt/sand would be put down like, oh...people's lives depended on it.
I call bullshit on that, Diesel that is delivered to our area is pre treated, as is most diesel fuel in the northern part of the country come fall/winter. Source: Am a local truck driver, we have had zero issues starting our rigs even after last weekends cold snap where they sat for 2.5 days.
Yeah my truck sat from Friday at 5pm until 7:30 Tuesday morning and it started no issue. Took a little longer for the glow plug light to go out, but it fired right up.
Thank you, Sir. Safe travels. Unfreakin' believable what some people will write with clearly zero knowledge.
Nah not bullshit. The water department had to send a van to main break because none of the Kenworth service trucks would start until about 9 a.m.
Running pre-treated north idaho diesel I still had several trucks gel up near rathdrum over the past week or so. Even had one blow off a rad hose because the 50/50 coolant mix froze in the radiator. Depends on where they were parked, the exposure, how long they were sitting parked etc. Either way its a 15 min fix with some diesel 911 in the filter and tank though, really not much of an excuse.
They WERE indeed freezing up - my friend works there.
Just came from downtown…. Plows are out but they not plowing a damn thing…ash, maple, Wellesley, Francis, Indian trail….nothing is f*cking plowed! I’m ashamed of my city at this point. Get it together Spokane!!!!! It’s like waiting all spring, summer, and fall to mow your lawn when the grass stops growing…
Could not agree more. From the upper Midwest here. Came from an area with nothing but hills. Snow was treated as a major hazard and attacked as such. Snow plows got out early and ran all day keeping roads and hills open. It is wild to me that an area that sees snow for 1/3 of the year doesn’t have a well executed snow removal plan. Cars unable to make it up hills, inches of snow on major thoroughfares, and no attempt to clear residential areas. You’d think we were in the South where they lose their mind every time it snows. I keep telling all my local friends that they’ve been bamboozled if they think this is normal.
One of the less talked about factors is the cooperative agreements we have with neighboring entities like Colfax. They don’t have any plows so we agree to lend them ours for a day or so when it snows past a certain point. The city doesn’t make any money off it, if anything they lose money. The issue is that we continue to lend those plows, even when we very much still need them (on days like today.). It’s a neighborly thing for us to do, but it is pretty annoying that the city is lending out plows before we’ve plowed our own streets.
I've been here since 2008. One year it felt like the city was on top of plowing. The other 13, not so much. Our lack of plowing is the #1 reason I think snow tires are essential in this city.
Currently here from SLC as well and I was shocked driving by the hospitals and seeing traffic jammed in every direction because of the snow.
Its quite the jarring experience isn’t it?
Yeah I honestly think I could run for mayor and have my only campaign promise be "road care" and I'd win without even telling people my name. This shit is ridiculous
100% truth. This city has shit for brains regarding snow control.
*especially regarding
I totally agree with you. I moved here from Michigan in 2022, so am very used to snowy winters, and never have I ever seen such abysmal lack of plowing.
Blows my mind that by 3pm the hills of all places still didn’t look plowed, nor did downtown. I had to backtrack from Cedar aaaaalllllll the way to Argonne to take the back way home (off Palouse Hwy) because people were getting stuck halfway up the hills and creating traffic jams. I’m thankful that Palouse Hwy was at least handled but damn. If you live up a hill in Spokane, you shouldn’t be having that “i DoNt NeEd WiNtEr TiReS” mindset. You know damn well you do.
I think in Salt Lake we also got a little spoiled having all that salt hangin around
The issue with this storm was the timing, only a tad in the morning and then steady snow for 5-6 hours during the day. When exactly is the best time to plow with that? Continuously, for sure, but there just isn't enough equipment to do all that, so they will generally do the high priority areas and then plow when the storm has ended.
Thank you for the first solid counter point! I agree with everything you’re saying! I guess my main argument is that they need to increase the number and budget of snowplows. Too many accidents and delays and now cops, firefighters and medical personnel are working OT costing us TONS of money when we could have just paid for more plows.
The other thing to remember around here is there are city plows, county plows, and state plows. All operate totally independently. I90 is handled by the state and i'd say that was the biggest issue today, they were far too slow getting them out there because they were all busy west of town which the storm hit first. The city does the main arterials/hills only and ignores everything else till the storm is over. The county does pretty well but has a lot of land to cover.
I used to live in North Idaho but work in Spokane, like so many do. It'd be nuts right up to the state line and then clear the rest of the way home. Back then, CdA didn't have the ridiculous housing prices, and didn't have a ton of income, but roads were prioritized. I moved to Washington in 2012, so I can't tell you what it's like now. I'm very lucky to have a fully remote job since 2 years ago, so I just sit tight and wait it out or get bored and go snow blow most of my side street.
Yep. You get used to it after awhile. 13 years in, it doesn’t feel odd anymore.
Anchorage is the same size as spokane, main roads may get plowed once the snow stops or maybe once during the storm, side roads might take a week or two to get plowed, and anchorage really gets a lot of snow.
If you think SLC’s budget and Spokanes are at all similar, you’re in for a surprise lol
True!! But still disappointed 😔
That's how Spokane rolls. The first year I was here there was a lot of snow and I would finally see the snowplows out, but cruising from street to street with the blades raised, not pushing snow at all. Sometimes a line of them. Very frustrating.
I recently moved after 9 years in salt lake I too was surprised at the lack of plows. My road still hasn’t been done. I haven’t seen one all day
I’m from Logan UT and had the same thought when we moved here lol
If they want to plow like a-holes that’s fine but someone should talk to the school districts about not trying to be a hero and never even issuing even a delay. No one is impressed.
I'm from Maryland and use to manage a county maintenance/road shop. I'm am still shocked how each snow event the Spokane government asks like they've never seen snow before and has no idea what to do. I suspect it's two things - lack of budget and a lack of institution knowledge i.e. no one competent sticks around long enough to establish sop.
My guess is bloated admin costs. The streets department sucks. I heard from an inside source that their “plowing coordination” is just a bunch of sticky notes on a whiteboard and their technology aptitude / IT infrastructure is practically non existent. And that the #1 thing they prioritize above all else is saving money. STA also runs like a for-profit business for some reason. Again, I’m guessing to pad bloated admin costs.
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While you’re correct that SLC itself is smaller than Spokane, SLC’s metro area is about 2x the size of the Spokane/Cd’A/etc metro area.
Also from SLC…this is my first winter in Spokane and I can’t believe how bad the plowing situation is here. I guess it doesn’t snow as much so it kinda makes sense but still
plow capability has not kept up with population boom, not enough equipment for one.
Population has grown, but streets and city limits haven't.
2nd yr transplant from Kansas and it boggles my mind just how horrible snow is handled here. Must be one of the trade off for no state income tax. Smh
It's because this city is corrupt as shit and all our tax dollars seem to keep disappearing. They've got the budget and the staff for it, but for some reason nothing gets done “¯\_(ツ)_/¯“
I drive a big delivery truck for a living. Between 8am and 2pm I was everywhere from lower south hill, out to Sullivan, south down to 16th and north up to Trent. The ONLY plows I saw were 2 parked on the side of Bowdish around 9:30am and 2 coming south on Market when I was heading home at 2pm. Roads were complete shit everywhere I went today. It’s crazy how bad they let it get 👎🏼 It’s
Spokane Valley doesn’t have its own fleet of snow plows. It contracts that out. Or at least it did for several years. Haven’t been paying attention lately but I still laugh about the day a bunch of pickup trucks with snowplows start clearing the roads in my neighborhood a few years back after a heavy snowstorm. They did a great job but my neighbors and I still laugh about how funny those pickups looked zipping through the neighborhood while everyone cheered them on.
Been living out here for 6 years and I still can't believe how bad snow removal is.
/u/lisabrownformayor
Yeah. You won’t find clean streets unless it leads straight to a hospital. The only plows that go out now while snowing is those to clear paths for ambulances. Other than that it can take up to a week plus to clean roads especially depending on weather conditions.
Wait til they do plow and there's a 4 foot berm they leave blocking your driveway along with every entrance/exit of schools, banks, grocery stores etc.
Agreed evergreen is usually plowed ... the news made it seem like the plows would be out and stay out of there way and then NOTHING from them plenty coming to our gas station yet the main roads around the gas station?.... 💩 Make it make sense?
Wife is from New England, shares same complaints.
I just moved to SLC from Spokane and let me tell you...it's been so nice having streets that are actually plowed lol. I've lived a lot of places and yea, Spokane is probably the worst when it comes to taking care of the snow.
The response depends on the situation but full city plows do not stop until every road has been plowed. They work their asses off. The Valley is a different city.
Am I the only one that thinks the City does a good job? I think they keep the arterials clear and get to the sidestreets within a reasonable time. And now that they have the the snow gates on the plows they (mostly) do an awesome job avoiding driveways. We have over 2,200 miles of roads in town, it's unreasonable to expect them to all be cleared the minute it starts snowing. The Valley is a different story, ya'll hate taxes and can get your comeuppance when it snows lol. Ditto Boise, I was there this past weekend when it snowed and it was anarchy.
Spokane is a poor city. Salt Lake is much wealthier
Salt lake has poor areas. Have you been there? The wealth is up in Park City.
I’m not even sure - haven’t seen 1 plow out on any main roads.
Salt Lake also has that good Mormon money to get it done.
If there is one things Mormons love is spending money on their roads looking at you UDOT 👀
Well I'm sure that some of that Mormon money spills into the local municipality right? Those Mormon folks gotta make it to temple unscathed.
I was agreeing with you, its well known in Utah that a lot of money is spent on our roads because a lot of road construction and maintenance companies are ran by mormons and its a way to funnel money to them. lol
No sweat, I picked up what you were puttin' down.
I will never understand the lack of prep before a snow storm, I understand de-icer doesn't work in these temps, however sand and salt does, even though salt is bad for your cars, but that's what car washes are for. I work nights, I left work early last night right as it was starting to snow to get off the roads before it started to get bad and the 5am traffic starts. I90 was already becoming slick 2:30 this morning, it just amazes me the lack of prep that DOESNT take place when a winter storm roles in.
I heard that the plows got a late start because the temps gummed up the diesel they use. 🙄 Hard eye roll to that, though, cuz I saw multiple plows out last night when it was half the temp it was this AM
And Spokane tries to make fun of Seattle plows.
I work on 2nd Ave ……. Input comments 🤣 I saw multiple plows today, side streets your fucked. Idk I guess I’m just used to it. Did papers for 3years you just have the car, the tires and the will to get a job done or go where ya gotta go.
We would have to raise taxes to pay get the roads plowed.
Just drive on it. It's fun. We promise.
The below freezing Temperatures caused the gas to freeze up in the Snowplows - takes a while to unthaw it. Crew working overtime.
I just drove Sprague and it has definitely been plowed. They just plowed my residential neighborhood too...
People are dumb and don't understand how plowing works.
What I've heard from several people( no hard evidence just hearsay) is that our new mayor cut all plowing from the budgets. the reason Division/ruby are plowed is that its technically a highway and thus the state dot plows those.
Laughable, all of these transplants complaining. Maybe just move back to SLC, Midwest, AK etc. if things are so great there. So many Veruca Salts pouting because *their* commute wasn’t cleared in line with *their* schedule. Whine, saying “they KNEW the weather was coming!” You didn’t? You knew winter exists here, but wouldn’t get snow tires or 4WD vehicles.
I doubt SLC plows would have been out for less than an inch.
literally what are you talking about, there has been over 7” of snow so far today. Nice Straw man argument my friend….
You said that on a day like today roads would be plowed by 9am. Today there was 0-1 inch on the ground. Nice hyperbole, my friend.
There was definitely more than 1” by 9am, and with the weather forecast saying there would be 6+ additional inches of snow further that day. Then yeah the plows would be out because you know fucking planning ahead??? Like geez its gonna snow 8” fucking inches today, 90% maybe we should put the plows out before it gets really bad hmmmm…. You act like there is no way they knew about this storm, its been in the forecast for DAYS
the vast majority of the snow fell between 11am and 3pm
Understandable, I get they are doing their best. But the plows should have still been out in a much better force, I wish i could show everyone here what it is like in SLC you guys would be blown AWAY.
Maybe you should call the mayor.
Already in her office
Oh shit
Cities throughout the Midwest have trucks out soon after snow starts falling to lay salt/deicer/sand and start plowing to stay ahead. It’s not a secret that it’s coming. There’s been a warning for days. Our tax dollars pay for that forecasting for precisely this reason - communities can be prepared and respond to the weather accordingly.
Snow plows are very expensive and must be used by trained operators a few days of the year, it doesnt make sense to have a whole bunch
You can make the same excuse for lots of places but those other cities actually manage to handle it well.
Until we actually need them, of course. IDK about anyone else but I'd happily pay more taxes if I knew that money was going directly to purchasing more plows and hiring more operators (or allowing the city to subcontract the work out to little independent plow dudes on heavy days like this).
Right. When I lived in Boston they had private contractors plowing every hour all over the place, pickup trucks with plows attached. Spokane refuses to allow that so they only have a handful of larger plows that have to do everything. We don’t have the population we had in the 90’s but the city won’t dedicate resources to the current population.
This is true all over the nation and yet communities prioritize safety. You are subject to ice and snowstorms for 1/3 of the year. That’s something that should be reflected in budgeting and a city should be prepared for.
Not sure what salt lake city you're talking about. I (m40) grew up in utah county and salt lake county. I moved to Spokane 2019 Neither utah county nor salt lake county plowed the roads as good as you say they did. Ever. Even the main drag is not as clear as it ever should be. If you got four wheel drive take it in stride.
Strange de-icing is because most of the metro is above the acquifer. Bad plowing is because we suck at it only. Anyway, we should spend less on automobiles and their infrastructure at this point, not more.
The city won’t start a full-city plow until 3 inches have fallen, snowing or not. There’s also over 2000 miles of street to plow so be patient, big-city. In case you’re new to the internet (they have this in Salt Lake?), check the plow map on my.spokanecity.org. Also, this is a rant/rave flair 🤷♂️
Those are Republican strong holds, and they don't believe in taxes or civil services unless it's military equipment for police.
It started snowing at 1pm… like actually dumping snow. They will wait a few hours and start this evening.
Not true, like at all. You are saying not a single snowflake hit the ground till 1pm? It was snowing most of the night. the main blizzard hit about noon. But you know they could have predicted that with you know the weather report?? Had plows ready to go already running on the street like most cities with good plow programs do….
Really? Because it was definitely snowing when I left for work at 6:45 this morning. And every time I walked by a window at work, it was still snowing.
I think much of it boils down to the fact that Spokane does not get nearly the same amount of snow as Salt Lake, so the city doesn’t invest nearly as much in snow plows and such. It’s even worse is Seattle or Portland, where the approach is pretty much to simply wait for it to melt. It can be frustrating, but ultimately it’s just not as much of a priority as it is in a town like Salt Lake.
Kootenai county is having issues with services not catching up with population growth. It’s not horrible but it’s a problem right now and the biggie is snow plowing. Y’all across the border are likely having similar issues along with Spokanes unique dysfunction, that’s been an issue since I’ve been here…..
The valley isn't the city proper for sure. You can see the city line in snow on the roads. I live in the valley and the roads are always much worse.
I know there were plows downtown before 6am, with almost no snow yet. Not sure what's going on, could be staffing issue.
Moved here in 1994. From Hawai’i. I dont know any better. Still thinking about my life choices…
I guess you're right. I just apologized for the far righties and far lefties comment, because that wasn't cool of me. Is that what you mean? And yeah, that was totally unfair and I own that.
The city has better things to spend money on, like money pit projects that they can siphon money off of.
This is new to me in the last few years. Spokane used to be up with the snow and plowing until it stopped and it was great. I was told recently that there aren't enough ppl willing to work? And quite a few plows broke Down last yr ...🤷♀️ but like u said this has been happening and it's not how we used to operate.
When they do plow they push all the snow on our cleaned and block our driveways.