Officials take stock of the snowy winter season

WEST BLOOMFIELD — While the weather is warming, last month saw higher levels of snowfall than in recent years, keeping county road crews busy clearing snow and ice.

All roads in West Bloomfield are managed by the Road Commission of Oakland County. This includes repairing them and keeping them clear. The township does not have its own Department of Public Works, the division that handles roadwork in many Michigan communities, according to Debbie Binder, the township’s clerk who serves on the Board of Trustees.

“(This) can be a blessing and a curse,” she said. “A blessing, because (the county) pays for the roads; a curse, waiting until they make it a priority.”

Safety is paramount, said Craig Bryson, senior communications manager for RCOC. 

“Our priority has always been based on safety — that the roads with the most traffic, traveling at the highest speeds are the top priority,” Bryson said. “You have a road like Orchard Lake that carries somewhere between 40,000-50,000 cars a day, moving anywhere between 40-50 miles per hour … that’s got to be a safety priority over a subdivision street, where cars are moving at 25 miles an hour and maybe a couple hundred cars, at best.”

Middlebelt Road is another road given priority for snow removal in West Bloomfield.

According to meteorological reports from January through the start of February, there were more than 25 consecutive days of snowfall in Oakland County. As a result, county snow removal crews were working around the clock.

“We’ve had days where it snowed, we get the main roads cleared, (and then) we start to get into the subdivisions. Then, a couple hours in, we get more snow, and we have to pull the trucks out (to work on the main roads),” Bryson said.

Many cities nearby have road millages and property taxes that augment state funding for their road work. This results in subdivisions being cleared faster, Bryson noted.

“Residents of West Bloomfield Township do not pay any property taxes for the road maintenance in their township,” he said.

The county does not keep track of snow events because there is no definitive beginning or end to them, according to RCOC, but tracks service countywide in terms of salt used and hours spent in service.

The garage that services West Bloomfield is in Waterford Township. The county has six garages that store a fleet of 145 snow vehicles that includes plows, salters, road graders for dirt roads and salt domes that store thousands of tons of salt. A full fleet is 109 vehicles in service. 

As of Feb. 9, more than 67,000 tons of salt had been used countywide, compared to 52,000 tons at the same point in 2025, 40,000 tons in 2024, and just under 32,000 tons in 2023.

According to RCOC, there has been at least a $2 million increase in road maintenance costs this year, which includes overtime.

“The downside is (there are) no road improvements to show for it,” Bryson said.  “It is just salting and plowing. That is money (where) had we not spent it on that, we could have used it for additional road resurfacing projects in the spring and summer.”

Bryson said that RCOC understands it can be frustrating waiting for one’s subdivision to be plowed. He reminded residents to remove their vehicles from the street when it is being plowed, and to be patient and understanding that RCOC is putting their safety first.