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TROY — As spring approaches and the weather warms up, officials in Troy are taking stock of a winter season that was busier than usual for snow control.
The Troy Department of Public Works handles much of the snow control effort in Troy, keeping city-owned roads clear while the Road Commission for Oakland County oversees the county roads.
Troy Public Works Director Kurt Boviensiep said this winter season was tougher than recent years. He also noted that their budgeting for snow events was exceeded due to many storms that occurred.
“I can tell you that we typically budget for 34 snow events per year,” he said. “Those events can range from big snows to little snows, and we have exceeded that number so far. We are slightly over what we predicted.
“We also budget to go into the subdivisions throughout the winter, and we are slightly over that budgeted amount, as well,” Boviensiep added. “I do want to say that there’s nothing to be alarmed when I say we’re over budget. We have good fund balance in the local major roads funds to be able to address some of these harsher winters, or winters that we didn’t predict to be quite as bad as what we saw this year.”
Those snow control efforts include the DPW’s storage of salt for deicing the roads, with a capacity of 8,000 tons.
“City staff were well-prepared for the snow events and worked diligently to keep area roads clear and safe for travel,” said Courtney Flynn, the city’s communications director, in an email. “We continue to see a positive response to the implementation of the snow emergency policy, which ensures our plow trucks can operate efficiently and clear the entire roadway.”
In prioritizing the roads, officials track the weather and receive feedback from police patrol officers on drivability conditions, determining which roads need to be serviced and when.
“We address those by salting the hills, the intersections and the curves, and then when we receive an accumulation on the road surface itself, 4 inches of more, we’ll go in and plow those,” Boviensiep said.
The staff does work with contractors, although there has been some difficulty finding them.
“We’ve seen a decrease in contractors willing to do that work,” Boviensiep said. “Typically, we’re hiring contractors that have large pieces of equipment, like front-end loaders … and they’re typically not busy in the wintertime. But what we’re learning is most of those employees get laid off (around that time). And to call them back to help us out, it actually disrupts their unemployment (benefits). So, we are seeing a decrease in contractor participation.”
During snow events, residents are encouraged to get their cars off the street, clear off fire hydrants if there’s one in front of their homes, and to avoid pushing snow onto the streets when shoveling their driveways.
“We do have a new snow emergency ordinance that requires residents to get their vehicles off those local roads when we declare snow emergency, when we plow the local roads,” Boviensiep said. “That’s important for our operation for safety reasons and efficiency. But not only that, we don’t have the staff to go back after the car is moved to clear the road.”
For more information, visit troymi.gov.
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