Ever Wondered How Detroit Determines What Streets To Plow?
Have you ever woken up after a huge snowstorm, even allowing yourself an extra twenty minutes to get to work, but still been late because you discovered that the street you live on wasn’t plowed?
Did you know that the City of Detroit maintains over 673 miles of major streets and 1884 of residential streets? That’s a lot of plowing, and even more salt that needs to be used every single winter for when it snows, but fear not, you aren’t being lost in the shuffle!
Thanks to the Detroit Department of Public Works, we now know how they choose which streets get plowed first! There is a 3-tier system that helps sort out the priority streets from the ones that can be left until a little bit later. Here’s how it breaks down:
Level 1: During Level 1, if there are three inches or less of snow and/or freezing rain, DPW crews will salt only on major thoroughfares.
Level 2: During Level 2, if there are three to six inches of snow and/or freezing rain, DPW crews will plow and/or salt on major thoroughfares only.
Level 3: During Level 3, if there are six inches or more of snow and/or freezing rain, DPW crews will plow and salt on major thoroughfares. Also during this level, until all major thoroughfares under its jurisdiction are safely passable, the City will have 50-plus trucks on the streets.
Below is a map of streets that are considered “major thoroughfares” and which ones are considered residential. More information is still available by visiting the DDPW website!
Did you know that you can watch snow plows do their jobs LIVE thanks to MDOT? From their website:
“To access the feature use the sidebar on the left side of the page and select “snowplows” and agree to the message from MDOT asking for an agreement excusing them from any potential liability. Look out on the MDOT map for the purple snow plow logo for any active state-owned vehicles equipped with a camera.
“The snowplow tracking feature on the Mi Drive website is being provided by MDOT as a pilot program intended to display information about active MDOT-only snow plows,” the “snow plows with cameras” selectable option reads on the MDOT website. “
Be sure to be on the look out for the brand new green flashing lights on snow plows on the streets! BE SAFE ON THE ROADS!!!!
